


Lovecraft in Brooklyn

by littleblackfox



Series: Lovecraft in Brooklyn [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), LOVECRAFT H. P. - Works
Genre: An Unfortunate Octopus, But then Steve Rogers isn't exactly blameless there either, Consentacles, Eldrich Gods suck at communicating, Eldrich Horrors Need Hugs, Enthusiastic Consentacles, M/M, Misunderstandings, Never use Craigslist for anything ever, Octopus has the worst day, Sam Wilson is tired of your shit, So many tentacles, Tentacles, The Cats of Ulthar, lovecraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-22 16:15:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10700568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox
Summary: Bucky shrugs. “My brothers wish me dead. But I have claimed this world as mine, and should any dare approach I will slaughter them, and their progeny.”“Oh,” Steve says weakly. “Well, it’s tough coming from a large family.”





	1. Craigslist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Riakomai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riakomai/gifts).



> "Eldrich Bucky," I said to Ria. "Needs a hug."  
> For you, you adorable Trash Racoon
> 
> Special thanks to Krycekasks for enthusiasm, and Obsessivereader for punctuation. Both highly necessary and much appreciated
> 
> FANART! The lovely [Twinksphobia](https://Twinksphobia.tumblr.com) made [THESE](https://twinksphobia.tumblr.com/post/173498921517/here-are-the-two-mock-covers-of) stunning covers for both Lovecraft in Brooklyn and the follow-up We Are Salmon in the Stream After Years at Sea!

“Craigslist, Steve?” Sam snorts down the phone. “Seriously?”  
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and fights the urge to sigh. “Yes, seriously.”  
“Only freaks and weirdos use Craigslist.”  
Steve walks into the kitchen, using his free hand to open the refrigerator and grab a bottle of water. He nudges the door shut with his hip and waits for the Sam Wilson Lecture Train to pick up speed.  
“Have you taken a look at it recently? People write their posts in all caps. All caps.”  
There is a shuffling sound, and Steve pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and sits down heavily, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear while he unscrews the bottle cap and takes a mouthful of cold water.  
“Okay, listen to this,” Sam sounds practically gleeful. “Room for rent in East Harlem. No drugs, must be okay with a cat.”  
“That’s not so bad. I like cats.”  
“Wait, wait, I’m just getting to the good part! Thirty year old part time nudist male and I prefer you to be nudist as well.”  
Steve huffs. “Sam…”  
“In need of nice, smart girlfriend/boyfriend to live with in Manhattan.” Sam laughs to himself. “I love sexual acts and living with my significant other makes the sex more accessible. Also I’d like to have an idea of your cock dimensions. I don’t want to be shocked when we meet.”  
“Aww jeez,” Steve mutters under his breath, low enough for Sam to miss, and sips at his water.  
“Free room for young woman willing to carry out household chores. You will be responsible for dishes, dusting, vacuuming, cleaning. No cooking required.”  
Steve waits for the punchline.  
“These chores must, that’s all caps. MUST. These chores MUST be done naked or in sexy lingerie.” Sam whoops with laughter. “Damn, better hope he keeps the place nice and toasty.”

Steve waits for the laughter to die down. “You’re a terrible therapist.”  
“I am a great therapist. People love me.”  
Steve can almost see Sam’s wide, gap-toothed grin. “Okay, so you’ve proved your point. Craigslist is an awful place. But what else can I do? Commissions have dried up lately and I can't pay my bills. I still need a roommate.”  
“Steve, come on man. What you need to do is sell up, make a fresh start.” Sam’s voice turns softer. “It ain’t good for you, living with all those ghosts.”  
Steve finally lets out his long-suppressed sigh. “We’ve been over this. I’m not selling.”  
“You could get a place in Red Hook or-”  
“I’m not leaving Brooklyn,” Steve snaps irritably. “I was born in this apartment.”  
“Yeah, and your Ma died in it.”  
The bottle of water slips out of Steve’s hand and hits the floor with a thud, spilling its contents across the dull white tiles.  
Sam’s voice drifts down the phone line, soft with an edge of contrition. “I know you still miss her, but it’s been a year, Steve. You need to move on.”  
“Eight months,” Steve mutters, making no effort to pick up the fallen bottle or move his feet away from the spreading puddle of water. “It’s been eight months.”  
“Still. You need to seriously think about moving on.”  
“I am moving on,” Steve mutters. “Just not away.”  
Sam hums to himself, unconvinced. “Alright, we’ll do it your way. You want to send me what you got written down so far? If I can’t talk you out of it, I can at least help out.”  
Steve slumps in his seat. “You’re a lifesaver, Sam.”  
“You still gotta weed out the crazies yourself, mind.”  
Steve scoops up his bottle from the floor and sets it on the table. “There won’t be any crazies, Sam.”

\--------------------

The knock at the door is early.  
Steve is still running around trying to get all his materials packed away. it’s not that he lives in squalor or anything, but he’d gotten absorbed in his latest piece and didn’t notice the time.  
“Just a second,” he shouts, moving the canvas to the corner of the room and taking his brushes and dirty glasses to the kitchen. He drops them in the sink to deal with later and washes the worst of the paint off his hands.  
There is no response from the door, and for a second Steve thinks that they’ve left in a huff. He wipes his hands off on a dishcloth, tossing it onto the draining board and going to answer the door.  
It occurs to him just as he’s rattling the lock that he’s not even dressed for potential roommates. Faded jeans and a paint spattered vest isn’t exactly a professional look.  
The lock finally gives and Steve pulls the door open and peers out into the hallway.  
Empty.  
He looks up and down the hall, but there’s no one there. Just the lines of front doors to other apartments on the floor. Steve huffs and pushes the door shut, the lock clicking into place. He sighs and turns back to the room, letting out a yelp at the man standing there.

He would probably be close to Steve’s height if he wasn’t hunched over. He’s wearing several layers of clothing hanging loosely over his slight frame. A scuffed black baseball cap on his head shields his eyes and most of his face from Steve’s view. His dark hair hangs limply down to his hunched shoulders, his head bowed. He looks wary, defensive. Like a dog that’s been kicked enough times to learn caution.  
Okay, so maybe Sam had a point about weirdos.  
“Hey,” Steve says slowly, resisting the urge to wrestle open the door and… What? Run? _What the hell?_  
The man smells… weird. Not unwashed, or like he’s homeless, though he looked like a hobo. He smells like sea air and seaweed, like wet stones and the charged, ozone rich air before a thunderstorm.  
“You here about the room?” Steve asks.  
The man nods.  
“You sent me the email, right?” Steve adds, still unable to shake a sense of… something. Something felt by small mammals when dinosaurs still stomped across the earth.  
The man shoves his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a phone. He taps at the screen with his thumb, then holds out the phone.  
On the screen is a mail program displaying a copy of the message Steve had received that morning, asking to look at the room.  
Steve nods, and the man tucks the phone back into his pocket.  
“Thanks. Just wanted to be sure, you know?” The man nods silently. “Okay, well I’m Steve.”  
He holds out his hand, and after a moment the man takes it. His hands are large and warm, his fingers dotted with callouses and blisters.  
After a moment of silent hand holding Steve gives him an awkward smile. “And you are?”  
The man doesn’t withdraw his hand, and after a moment of uncertain silence, opens his mouth.  
Syllables rattle between Steve’s ears, low and grating, like the shifting of tectonic plates beneath the sea. He stifles the low whine of animal panic that creeps up his throat.  
“I’m sorry, I didn't catch that,” Steve smiles, brittle and uneven at the edges.  
The man speaks again, a dull roaring in his ears.  
“Bugsh…” Steve frowns. “Bucky? Your name is Bucky?”  
The man finally tugs his hand away from Steve’s, tucking it into the pocket of his jacket. “Bucky.”  
His voice is low with a slight rasp, as though from disuse.  
“Okay. Come on, I’ll show you around.”

Bucky moves softly alongside Steve as he walks around the apartment, nodding silently at the bathroom and kitchen while Steve tries to remember what to say.  
“Kitchen’s pretty small, but you’re welcome to use what I’ve got. You’ll get your own cupboard and shelves in the refrigerator. Just… Don’t take my stuff, okay?” Steve gives him a weak smile. The man hums to himself and pulls open the kitchen drawer, poking his finger into the cutlery curiously before pushing the drawer shut again and giving Steve an odd grimace, like he’s trying to smile.  
“Okay,” Steve says, pushing on. “The bedrooms.”  
He leads the way through the living room and points to the door leading to his own room.  
“That’s my room, and over here is the…”  
Bucky has wandered off. The apartment is small, so it’s not like it takes Steve long to find him, over in the corner of the living room, crouching down in front of Steve’s latest canvas.  
Bucky has both hands tucked under his chin, and is staring at the painting like he’s communing with it.  
Steve flushes pink. “Yeah. That’s my. Uhm. I’m an artist.” He scratches the back of his head, embarrassed. “I mean I try. Work’s pretty slow at the moment.”  
“Sorrow,” Bucky murmurs.  
Steve freezes. “What?” It comes out sharper than he intended. Bucky glances up at him before turning back to the painting. Underneath the baseball cap his eye are the deep blue of the Pacific. Bucky nods to the image, a still life of a handful of wildflowers, tall spires of yellow and white, their stems crushed from being held too hard.  
“Sorrow,” he repeats. “A gift never given.”  
Steve lets out a choked sound and claps his hand over his mouth, effectively silencing himself. He breathes in, counts to five, and exhales.  
“The room is this way.”

Bucky stands up with easy, sinuous grace, and follows Steve to the spare room.  
Most of the contents have been cleared out, either put into storage or given to Goodwill. And the room itself isn’t exactly spacious, but there is a bed and a chest of drawers, and a window overlooking the street below.  
Bucky walks into the room, brushing his hand along the walls. They had been yellow, once, but were now an inoffensive shade of pale blue.  
Steve would be damned before he painted any room in his apartment beige, and the thought of white was too reminiscent of sterile hospital wards.  
“There’s a lock and key to the room,” Steve points out, hovering in the doorway. “I have a copy but obviously I won’t use it, and I’ll only come in with your permission.”  
Bucky doesn't answer, going over to sit on the bed. He bounces up and down a little, looking slightly alarmed at how springy the new mattress is.  
“I mean, if you disappear for a week then I’ll have to come in. Or if you throw a big party and I have to come break it up. Or if there’s a…” Steve realises that he’s babbling and falls silent.  
Bucky shifts from the bed onto the floor, sprawling out on the carpet in a starfish shape. He closes his eyes and after a minute Steve wonders if he's fallen asleep.  
“Uh. Bucky?” he calls out, still reluctant to enter the room.  
Bucky opens his eyes. He looks peaceful. Serene. All the weight that he had been carrying gone from his shoulders. He tugs off his baseball cap, letting his hair fan out around his head in a chestnut sprawl. He leaves the hat on the floor beside him, like he’s marking his territory.  
“Sarah,” he says, rolling onto his feet in a single, graceful move.  
Steve damn near chokes on his own tongue. “What?!”  
Bucky saunters towards him, reaching out to trail his fingers along the wall beside him. “That was her name.” It’s not even a question.  
“How the hell do you know about my mother,” Steve snarls, angry and defensive. “What the fuck are you playing at? You get a kick out of-”  
“She was a child of the _Shoggoth_ ,” Bucky talks over him. Calm. Patient. There is something in his tone that silences Steve. “Poor creatures, cast out for their failed insurrection. We all were.”  
Steve can only stare in silence as Bucky speaks, his voice low and melodious as he leans against the doorframe.  
“She fed them with her horrors. They grew fat and content on her fears.” Bucky smiles at him, wide and bright and unexpectedly beautiful. “Thank you.”  
Steve nods dumbly as Bucky runs the flat of his palm against the blue painted wall.  
“It is a worthy offering. I accept.”

It’s enough to make Steve’s head spin. He holds up a hand, and realises that he’s shaking.  
“Now. Now just a minute…” he shudders. “This is.” He stops, lowering his hand. “You knew my Ma?”  
Bucky shakes his head. “The walls remember her. Her voice resides in the floors, her laughter chases through the copper wires.” He moves his hand to the light switch by the door, tracing the path of electrical currents. “That is why you remain here.”  
Steve stares at him, and nods carefully. “No one seems to get it. They all keep telling me to leave.”  
“Why would you leave the things that matter to you most? If I could remain with my kin, I would.” Bucky pulls his hand away from the wall and shoves it in his pocket, his shoulders tensing up. “But that way is closed to me now.”  
“I’m sorry,” Steve says genuinely. It was just me and Ma. Were you close to your family?”  
Bucky shrugs. “My brothers wish me dead. But I have claimed this world as mine, and should any dare approach I will slaughter them, and their progeny.”  
“Oh,” Steve says weakly. “Well, it’s tough coming from a large family.”  
Bucky pushes past him and heads back into the living room. “It is of no concern.”  
Steve follows him. “What do you do for a living?” he asks as Bucky starts to poke through the bookshelf, pulling out novels and reference books at random.  
“Conservation,” Bucky says after a moment, and climbs over the sofa to take a closer look at the TV.  
“And why should I rent you my spare room?”  
Bucky quickly loses interest in the TV, picking up the remote and giving it a shake. “Because your soul sang out to me, across the infinite where the dead lie dreaming. You called and I have come.” He says absently, setting the remote back down on the coffee table and continuing his exploration of the living room.  
Steve presses his thumb to the bridge of his nose. Sam was right. Sam was right about crazy people on Craigslist and Steve is never gonna live this one down.  
Sam is going to be _insufferable._  
Bucky drifts back to the painting, tilting his head to one side. “You did not lose her.” he says abruptly, just as Steve is trying to figure out how to get the weird guy out of his apartment. “She is with you. You were made of her blood and bones, she gave you the colour of her eyes, the cadence of your laughter. These are the parts of her that you will carry until you are wrought to atoms and returned to the stars.”  
Steves knees give way and he sits down heavily on the couch.  
“Oh, he whispers.  
Oh  
Bucky makes himself comfortable on the floor, sitting crossed-legged and resting his elbows on his knees. He stares at the handful of yellow flowers, their sunny petals wilting.  
Of all the people who have seen Steve’s wildflower paintings, Bucky is the first to look past the bright colours and see the grief underneath.  
“When can you move in?” Steve chokes out.  
Bucky turns to him and smiles, the fine skin at the corner of his eyes crinkling.

The silences stretches out between them, and as much as Steve expects it to become awkward, it doesn’t. Bucky sits on the floor, basking in the late spring sun filtering through the window, waiting patiently for Steve to pull himself together.  
He does, eventually, getting up to go to the kitchen and make coffee.  
Steve bites his lip, tipping coffee grounds into the filter paper and filling the reservoir with water, taking small comfort in the familiar routine. He sets the jug on the hotplate and switches it on.  
“You want some coffee?” he calls out as the water begins to boil.  
There is a thoughtful hum. “Tea.”  
He doesn’t have a kettle, but he could probably boil some water in a pot on the stove.  
Fuck.  
“I don’t have any tea. Uh. A glass of water?”  
“Look in the cupboard,” Bucky sounds amused.  
Steve frowns and opens the empty cupboard that he had cleared out in preparation. Inside was a couple of cans of sardines, a candy bar and a box of green tea. Steve picks up the box like it might start ticking, and glances back at where his new roommate is still sat on the carpet, his chin resting on his cupped palm, his eyes half-closed like he’s dozing in the sun.  
Steve huffs. He must have slipped them into the cupboard when Steve wasn’t looking, which was kind of forward but... Hmm. Not necessarily bad.  
He opens up the box, it's full of little twists of dried green leaves. Okay, so maybe he can boil it up on the stove and strain it into a mug? He puts the open box on the counter, and as he’s reaching for a pan he notices the electric kettle on the counter, already plugged in and filled with water. There is a mug next to it, fine white china with a domed lid. A fish has been painted on the mug in blue ink, its tail an expansive flourish.  
Steve glances back at Bucky, who is definitely asleep, sat in the sun like a cat.  
He lifts the lid warily, and finds a little ceramic bowl inside the cup, nesting just inside the rim. Holes have been poked into the bowl before it had been fired and glazed, and it resembles a little tea strainer. He tips a little of the tea into the bowl and flicks on the kettle.  
He checks on Bucky again, to see if he’s sneaking about while Steve is occupied, moving shit around or fucking with him somehow. But he’s still asleep, or at least feigning it well.  
The kettle clicks off, and Steve pours water through the leaves, watching as they unfurl and release a sharp, grassy aroma. He lifts out the bowl and leaves it in the sink with his dirty brushes, puts the lid back on the mug and takes it out to his new housemate.

He takes the chance to get a closer look at Bucky while he’s sleeping.  
A strong, well-defined jaw. A dimpled chin. Long, dark lashes. Steve has a sudden urge to get his sketchbook, to fix down the sight of him in broad sweeps of charcoal, to mark down his eyelashes in fine ink, to flood heavy paper with endless washes of watercolour until he found the exact shade of blue of his eyes.  
Steve swallows. Oh, that kind of thinking isn’t good. He tamps it down and puts the mug on the floor at Bucky's feet, the rattle of the china lid making his eyes crack open.  
Gouache. Watercolour isn’t rich enough, it would have to be gouache.  
“Tea,” Steve mutters. “I don’t know how to make it, so…”  
“Thank you,” Bucky murmurs sleepily, and that does something to Steve’s guts that he's not remotely ready to think about.  
“Coffee,” Steve says sharply, heading back to the kitchen.  
He pours himself a mug, forcing his hands to remain steady while he slowly and thoroughly packs the mass of conflict going on in his chest, seals it up in a box and labels it ‘Deal with this never’ before shoving it into the coldest recesses at the back of his mind.  
“You are an artist,” Bucky murmurs beside his ear.  
Steve yelps and slops hot coffee over the counter. He sets down his mug before his hand finally gives way and grabs a dishcloth, wiping up the spill and pointedly ignoring the way his hands are shaking.  
He refills the mug and takes a sip before turning around to face Bucky.  
He is standing less than a foot away, and the sharp, earthy aroma of his tea mingles with the scent of him, salt and mineral and ozone.  
“What?”  
“You said you are an artist?” Bucky clarifies.  
“Oh. Yeah. I am. I try to be,” Steve nods, flustered.  
“Can I see more?”  
“Oh. Sure.” Steve takes another sip of coffee while he tries to work out what to say.  
“There is no colour in the void,” Bucky offers. “But here there are… lights that are beyond imagining. Fires that dance in the sky where there should be nothing. In the deepest trenches of the ocean there are motes of light and colour, shimmering unseen, just because they long to shine.”  
Steve takes another sip of coffee, and presses down a little harder on that damned box.  
“Uhm. Rent,” he says abruptly. “I’ll need a deposit, and the first month upfront,” he tries to remember what Sam had told him. “You’ll get your deposit back when you move out.”  
“Oh, I’m not leaving,” Bucky says quietly.  
He shoves his hand in his pocket and pulls out a crumpled bundle of notes, tacky with something dark and pungent. He reaches forward, waving them gently as if enticing a wild animal closer, bills dropping to the floor. Steve puts down his coffee and holds out both hands, stuttering in confusion as Bucky presses the money into his outstretched hands. The remaining notes are glued together with the treacly substance, pungent and sweet.  
“I. Er. I wasn’t expecting cash,” he tries to explain as he drops the pile on the table, ones scrunched up with twenties and fifties and hundreds. His fingers are sticky with a residue that won’t rub off.  
Even with all the singles there must be close to five thousand dollars. “Bucky this is too much.”  
Bucky shrugs. “Tell me when you want more,” he says and takes a sip of tea.  
Steve rubs his finger and thumb together. “Is this… Engine oil or something?”  
“Ichor,” Bucky watches idly as more notes flutter to the floor. “Can I see those paintings?”

“Steve!” Sam yells down the phoneline.  
Steve tucks his phone between his shoulder and ear and wipes off his brush. “Hey Sam, what’s up?”  
“Nothing, nothing. Just checking that you've not been chopped into little pieces and left in the bathtub.”  
Steve lets out a snort. “No, Sam. I’ve not been murdered by someone looking for a reasonably priced room in Brooklyn. Thank’s for asking.”  
“Good to know. You had any interest? Any trouble?”  
Steve bites the inside of his cheek. “Yeah. He moved in yesterday.”  
Sam lets out an incredulous snort. “Seriously? The guy’s references checked out already?”  
_Oh crap._  
“I… don’t think he had references.” Steve puts down his brush and waits for the lecture.  
“What? Steve are you shitting me?” Sam sighs audibly down the phone. “What’s his name?”  
“Why?”  
“So I can tell the police when we find you in a bathtub full of ice? Why do you think?”  
Steve gets up from his stool, giving his canvas a last, apologetic look before going to the kitchen.  
“Bucky,” he says, fetching a bottle of water from the refrigerator. “His name is Bucky.”  
“What? That sounds Irish, what’s his last name?”  
Steve pauses in unscrewing the bottle cap. “I didn’t ask.”  
Sam lets out a shrill noise. “Steve, what the hell?! Are you trying to get yourself-”  
“He’s not like that,” Steve mutters defensively. “He’s… nice.”  
“Uh-huh? What does he do?”  
Well that one Steve can answer. “Conservation.”  
“Mmm-hmm? He fill out a contract?”  
Steve doesn’t answer, giving his water bottle a guilty look.  
“Steve…”  
“Sam, I’m not a little kid! I can take care of myself.”  
Sam doesn’t argue, though Steve can almost hear him lining up a dozen reasons to kick Bucky onto the street. “He’s fine, Sam. He’s actually kind of sweet. Leave it alone.”  
But Sam can sense blood in the water. “Steve…” he’s using his therapist voice. Fuck. “Steve, it is not a good idea to get involved with someone who’s paying you rent. Sex and money can be a nasty business.”  
Steve rubs his cheek, fighting at the pink flush blooming across his features.  
“I know you Steve, you’re too damn trusting. You don’t want to get in a situation like with…”  
“I’m NOT!” Steve snaps. “Jesus Christ Sam, that whole thing was a misunderstanding. Give me a break.”  
“Fine,” Sam grumbles. “But this conversation is not over.” Steve hums in acknowledgement. “So, he’s not a weirdo then?”  
Steve huffs. “He’s… weird, yeah. But he’s harmless.”  
“Oh yeah?” Sam doesn’t sound convinced.  
Steve picks at the label on his bottle. “Yeah.”

The cats start appearing after a week.  
The first one, a tiny little puff of black fur and whiskers, is sitting on the counter one morning when Steve comes out for coffee.  
Bucky tends to be up before Steve in the morning, and leaves him a fresh pot of coffee before heading out to do whatever conservationist do. He never drinks it himself, though will sometimes pour himself a cup just to warm his hands and breathe in the aroma, pouring it away when it’s cold and stale.  
But it’s a little something he does for Steve every day, and Steve quietly treasures it.  
The cat, however, is an unexpected addition.  
“Hey, puss.” Steve says, and gives the little bundle a stroke.  
It purrs, jumping up to rub against his hand and shivering with delight when he strokes along its back, tail pointed straight up and trembling.  
“Are you Bucky’s?” Steve asks the cat, who responds by climbing up his arm, it's needle-point claws pricking through the sleeves of his shirt, and settling on his shoulder.  
He gives the cat a scratch under the chin, and it purrs, flexing its tiny claws in the soft cotton of his shirt. It’s warm weight and low, thrumming purr keeps Steve company the rest of the morning.  
When Bucky shuffles back into the apartment just before lunch the cat leaps to its feet and lets out a high ‘krrr’ at the sight of him, barely even wobbling on Steve’s shoulder.  
“Lord Dunsany,” Buck answers politely.  
The cat settles down again, tucking its paws primly under its body and wrapping its tail around itself until it’s a snug little ball.  
“Hey, Buck,” Steve looks up from his painting. “I didn’t know you had a cat.”  
Bucky comes over to see how he’s progressing. “His Lordship is his own, and honours us with his presence.” Bucky looks uncomfortable. “Should I ask him to leave?”  
The cat digs tiny claws into Steve’s shoulder. He huffs and gives it a rub on the noise, fighting a laugh at Bucky’s scandalised expression. “I like cats. Dum-Dum is fine where he is.”  
Bucky turns to the cat, looking a mixture of aghast and apologetic. “My Lord, I can only apologise-”  
The cat lets out a tiny little ‘mew’, and Bucky falls silent.

It’s not what Steve had expected from having a roommate.  
It’s better.  
There are a half dozen cats that come and go as they please. They don’t take up much space, or even make a mess, and mostly spend their time sleeping in sunny patches on the living room floor or winding around Steve’s feet in the kitchen when he’s making dinner.  
Bucky had formally introduced each one to Steve, giving them full names and titles while they rolled around his feet, batting at the laces of his boots. Steve nodded politely and listened intently, then renamed each cat, just to see the look of horror on Bucky’s face.  
Menes the Wanderer became Morita. Celephais, the Horseman of the Sky became Falsworth. Sarnath, the fall of the Mnar became Jonesy.  
Eventually Bucky just accepted the new names, though he still greeted each cat formally on meeting them, and Steve never saw him pick them up for a cuddle. He was clearly fond of them, feeding them bites of canned sardines or picking out the pieces of chicken or ham from the meals Steve made for them both and surreptitiously feeding them to the cats lurking under the kitchen table.  
Steve should have been annoyed that Bucky kept bringing the cats into his apartment, especially without asking. But he was utterly charmed by them all. And the way Bucky introduced him to each one, like introducing two members of state at some grand function.  
Yeah, maybe he was a little charmed by that too.

“So when do I get to meet your weird-assed new roommate?” Sam asks, following Steve through the front door.  
Steve shrugs and fetches two bottles of water from the refrigerator, tossing one over to Sam, who is still out of breath and kind of steamed at Steve for being a faster runner than him. Again.  
“He’s not weird,” Steve mutters, defensive. “He’s just different.”  
“Dude, he sounds weird,” Sam laughs, heading over to the couch. “Where is he anyway?”  
“I don’t know, I’m not his keeper,” Steve grumbles, then kind of misses his point by walking around the apartment, calling out to see if Bucky is around. He even checks in the bathroom, which is empty, though there is something… disgusting in the bathtub.  
Steve takes a step closer and pulls back the shower curtain.  
“What the hell?” he mutters.  
The bath has a thick layer of viscous, dark slime in it. The smell is surprisingly sweet, like the sticky substance Steve had to wash off the rent money, and has the same deep rich brown colour.  
“What’s with all the cats?” Sam calls from the couch, where Pinky and Sawyer are climbing over him and giving him a thorough sniffing.  
“The Howling Commandos,” Steve calls out, reaching down to prod at the slime. The surface is slightly gelatinous, resistant to his touch, and leaves a smear of something on his fingertip.  
Steve has the oddest urge to lick it off, but wipes his finger on his jeans and heads for the kitchen.  
Sam has three cats sprawled on his lap, and he’s scratching Sawyer behind the ear and calling him a cutie. Sawyer purrs loudly and stretches, flexing his little ginger toes.  
Steve grabs a bottle of bleach from under the kitchen sink, and leaves Sam to commune with the Howlies.  
He pours the whole bottle of bleach into the bath and turns on the hot water, watching the slime get flushed down the drain and quietly deciding to have a serious word with Bucky about keeping the communal areas of the apartment clean and free from ooze. He rinses out the bottle, pours it down the drain and lets the water run for a couple of minutes before shutting it off and taking the empty bottle to the kitchen and dropping it into the recycling.  
“You guys getting on?” he asks, joining Sam on the couch.  
“Yeah, they’re pretty cool,” Sam grudgingly agrees.  
The apartment door crashes open and Bucky storms in, soaking wet and smelling like a sewer.  
Steve looks over the back of the sofa at him. “Hey Buck. You okay?”  
Bucky glares at him, the most murderous death-glare that Steve has ever had thrown in his direction. The room seems to grow darker, the air gets a little colder.  
Pinky sits up from her spot on Sam’s lap and lets out the softest little chirrup.  
Bucky visibly deflates, and the room gets brighter, though no warmer. He lets out a low growl and stomps into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.  
Steve bites his cheek to keep from smiling. They guy probably won’t even thank him for cleaning the crap in the bath.  
“That’s Bucky,” he says, scooping up Pinky and giving her a scratch behind the ears.

Bucky has been living there for almost a month when Steve realises that he is happy.  
It’s an odd revelation, and happens at the strangest moment, when they are sat on the couch watching an old Buster Keaton movie.  
Bucky doesn’t much care for reality TV or dramas, but he finds TV in general fascinating, and when he isn’t out doing whatever conservationists do, he is sat on the couch, wrapped in the thick, dark blanket that seems to be the only thing he had brought with him when he moved in, flicking through the channels until he finds something that catches his interest.  
Steve is tucked up at the far end of the couch, a sketchpad on his knee, though he isn’t really working on anything. Bucky is barely visible under the folds of his blanket, but Steve can hear him chuckle as Buster on the TV runs down a hill, pursued by giant fake boulders.  
Dum Dum is curled up asleep on Steve’s shoulder, nose tucked under his ear, Jonesy balled up against his hip.  
Bucky laughs again, low and sweet, and the box buried deep in Steve’s chest rattles.  
Steve tamps it down and tosses the sketchbook on the table, leaving the half-finished portrait for another time, and settles back to watch the rest of the movie.

Steve wakes up alone, still curled up on the couch. Even the cats have wandered off.  
He gets up, stiff and sore from sleeping in an awkward position and stretches before heading to the bathroom.  
Bucky is making coffee when he comes out, and Steve watches from the doorway as he measures out coffee grounds and water before making himself tea.  
“Hey,” he murmurs, still waking up. “You sleep okay?”  
Bucky fetches a mug from the draining board. “I am one with Darkness, I have no need of sleep,” he announces.  
Steve huffs, filled with a sudden burst of affection. “Yeah, but did you sleep okay?”  
Bucky raises his chin, defiant. “No thanks to your snoring.”  
Steve laughs and comes further into the room. “I don’t snore.”  
Bucky’s mouth quirks up a little, but he maintains his stern expression. “The Herald of _S’gilhuo, Alala_ , is but the whimpering of mice compared to you. You sound like a sawmill.”  
Steve shakes his head. “Well you sound like…”  
He stops.  
He knows what Bucky sounds like when he’s asleep. It’s like a soothing white noise, like waves crashing onto a sandy beach. Like rain on grassy meadows.  
Bucky’s eyes darken, shifting from the deep blue of the Pacific to stormy skies, and he crosses the kitchen floor in two paces, swift and implacable as wind or wave. He shoves Steve up against the wall and kisses him.  
Steve’s back slams against the drywall hard enough to knock down one of the framed pictures hanging there, and Bucky takes advantage of Steve’s involuntary gasp of surprise and pushes his tongue into his mouth, forcing his teeth apart.  
Steve moans, his hands grabbing at Bucky's shoulders. Not to push him away, but to pull him closer. He tastes like saltwater and seaweed, and a metallic tang sweet like blood but richer, darker. Bucky’s hands pin Steve’s hips to the wall, keeping him in place, and grazes his teeth along Steve’s plush lower lip before licking into his mouth again, deep and rough and near frantic.  
Steve closes his mouth and sucks on Bucky’s tongue. It feels strange against his soft palate, rough and dexterous and pitted with raised discs. They stick to the roof of his mouth, catching on his tongue and teeth.  
Bucky rumbles against his lips and moves his hands lower, curling around Steve’s hips and pulling him closer. Steve whines, low and desperate, and ruts his thickening cock against the crease of Bucky’s thigh.  
Under the faded denim of Bucky’s jeans, something _squirms._

Steve pulls back, Bucky’s tongue suckering against the inside of his upper lip and detaching as Steve pushes against his shoulders, turning his face away.  
“Stop,” he whispers.  
Bucky withdraws, lifting the back of his hand to his mouth. “Steve?” he asks, his voice muffled and concerned.  
Steve shakes his head. “I can’t… We can’t…”  
Bucky lowers his hand, his lips damp and kiss bitten, and all Steve can think of is that _he did that._  
“Your colours…” Bucky says, confused.  
Sam’s voice rings in Steve’s ears. He thinks of all the adverts he saw for rooms in exchange for… He swallows, tasting saltwater and minerals.  
“If you can’t make rent, you come talk to me. You don’t offer…” Steve’s mouth can’t even shape the words. “Trade.”  
Bucky’s eyes widen, shifting from blue to silver. “You want money?” he shoves his hand in his pocket, and Steve shakes his head, holding up his hands, palms outwards.  
“No. Please, don’t.” He takes a breath. “It’s just… A bad idea.”  
Bucky seems to diminish before his eyes, like his edges are fading. “But we were-”  
“It was a mistake,” Steve says quickly, trying to salvage what he can from the situation.  
Bucky wraps his arms around himself, looking wounded. “But I did everything right,” he says weakly. “I followed the rules.”  
Steve lets his hands drop to his sides. “I’m sorry.”  
Bucky nods once, biting the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t say another word, just walks to the front door, still in his socks and the t-shirt he slept in. He doesn’t look back, just opens the door and slips out, pulling it closed behind him.

He doesn’t come back.


	2. Coney Island

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange dreams of endless black sand deserts where lightning crackled overhead. Frozen tundras, the ice twisted into jagged spires that reach up to touch the drifting, liquid shapes that skimmed across the sky, tendrils trailing across the snowdrifts. Slow-moving creatures made of starlight drift across nebulae, the dust clouds catching on the infinite spread

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for terrible things happening to an octopus.
> 
> For the wonderful Riakomai, whom I adore.
> 
> With thanks to Krycekasks for reckless enabling, and Obsessivereader for tucking in the loose edges.

It takes three days for Steve to even consider that Bucky might not come back.  
The cats are still in the apartment, though they are all acting pissed at him. They huddle up together on the couch and glare at him, one calico mass of fur and a dozen baleful eyes. He’s pretty sure that the only time they move is when he goes to bed or to the bathroom, and then it’s just to make sure that he can still see them glowering.  
When he takes a shower they are clustered on the tiled floor, burning a hole in the shower curtain. When he goes to sleep they sit at the foot of the bed and stare.  
He can’t bring himself to yell at them, and shutting them out of the room doesn’t seem to deter them.  
He doesn’t really try. He has an awful suspicion that he deserves it.  
Dum Dum is the only one who still seems to like him. He sits on the kitchen counter, a little puff of black fur next to the coffee maker, making soft trilling noises while Steve makes his own coffee in the morning. It tastes wrong when he makes it, sour and stale and bitter.  
The irony is not lost on him.  
The kettle and the box of tea are still on the counter. For a few days Steve clings to the possibility that Bucky will come back, if only to collect his belongings, but as time wears on it seems less plausible. If he won’t come back for half a dozen cats, why would he come for a box of tea and a funny looking mug?  
Steve starts brewing the tea in the mornings, just for the smell of it. He starts drinking the tea, to remember the taste of Bucky’s mouth.

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?” Sam asks, standing in the doorway of the apartment. He takes in the sight of Steve, the blotches of crimson and cerulean on his t-shirt. “Oils? That bad, huh?”  
Steve huffs and waves him in. It’s frankly irritating how well Sam knows him because yeah, he only works in oils when he’s miserable. And he is. Very.  
It’s been five days.  
He shuts the door and watches as Sam goes over to the window to greet the cats. They all bask in his attention, clamouring around him like he’s made of canned tuna.  
Steve is more than half-convinced that they’re all fucking with him, and ignores the lot of them in favour of making undrinkable coffee.  
Sam carries Jonesy over to Steve’s latest painting, a vast swathe of something close to black that on closer inspection is layers of deep blue and indigo and red. There are threads of electric blue and mists of scarlet, barely visible against the inky black, slowly and inexorably drawing him in.  
“Woah,” Sam breathes.  
Jonesy bats at his cheek and Sam blinks and turns away from the painting, shaking his head as if he has water in his ears as he carries Jonesy over to the couch.  
“I screwed up, Sam,” Steve sighs, pouring the cup of coffee that Sam will claim tastes the same as always and taking it over.  
Sam takes the offered cup, saying nothing at the green tea in Bucky’s mug that Steve is cradling, but giving him a pointed look that’s worth a six minute Sam Wilson lecture on unhealthy character traits.  
Dum Dum circles around Steve’s ankles, mewing until Steve picks him up and sits down next to Sam, settling the little puffball in his lap.  
“You wanna maybe tell me what happened?” Sam has his therapist voice on, and Steve hates it, hates being a burden.  
“No,” he says, stroking Dum Dum’s soft fur. The cat watches him intently, ears pricked forward. “I just… miss him.”  
Sam sighs and pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah, I know you do.”

He wouldn’t call them nightmares, as such, but Steve starts having dreams. Strange dreams of endless black sand deserts where lightning crackled overhead. Frozen tundras, the ice twisted into jagged spires that reach up to touch the drifting, liquid shapes that skimmed across the sky, tendrils trailing across the snowdrifts. Slow-moving creatures made of starlight drift across nebulae, the dust clouds catching on the infinite spread of their tails.  
He shrugs them off as the results of eating cheese before bed, but tries to capture the images before they fade away, tries to recall the shape of glaciers and dunes. He feels more frustration than triumph, but every morning he sets out his paints and pastels and tries again.  
He cracks open the box in his chest and takes a close look inside. It’s not like it matters after all, the damage has been done, even if he dwells on how things could have been different.  
Seven days after Bucky leaves, Steve takes the spare key and goes into his room.

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting. It wasn’t like Bucky had much in the way of possessions, and Steve didn’t think he was the kind of person to tear up the place in a temper.  
The room is empty, the only sign that anyone has been in there is a blanket draped across the bed and a handful of crumpled notes on the chest of drawers.  
He picks up the bundle, ones and twenties and hundreds all stuck together with that sticky, sweet-smelling sap.  
“Bucky,” Steve sighs, setting them down again.  
It had never been about money. Whatever Bucky’s motivations had been, and Steve has some pretty clear ideas what they were, he hadn’t been trying to get out of paying rent.  
Steve rubs the sap between his fingers. How could he have been so fucking stupid?  
He walks over to the bed and sits down next to the blanket. He’d seen Bucky wrapped up in it a dozen times, watching TV or skulking around the apartment, the edges trailing along the floor behind him.  
Steve reaches out and brushes his hands across the material. It’s soft and warm, a deep shade of chestnut. There are little pieces of plastic dotted all around the border that look like eyes. Some are closed, but a handful are open. The irises are the same blue as Bucky’s eyes.  
Steve traces his finger along the edge of one of the larger eyes, and some trick of the design seems to make it flutter. He presses it with a fingertip, it’s firm and slightly rubbery to the touch. The iris flickers in the plastic, and Steve pulls his fingers away, feeling a little guilty about poking the plastic eye. He gives the blanket an apologetic pat, letting his fingers dig into the thick wool.  
Steve knows he has always been more visually-minded. He’s never really hoarded objects. Photographs, yeah. He has boxes of them, and finds himself resenting the digital age for depriving him of future hoards of pictures, worn around the edges and the colours fading.  
He never got the chance to take a picture of Bucky. He’d tried a couple of times, took snapshots of him on his phone when Bucky was watching TV or feeding pieces of chicken to the cats, but the results always came out blurry. A dark mass full of reflecting light, fuzzy edged and indistinct. Like driving through the rain at night, when the streetlights hit the windshield and make the raindrops look like diamonds.  
He picks up the blanket and holds it to his face, burying his nose in its warmth and breathing in the scent. Saltwater and thunderstorms. Bucky.  
He lets the bundle fall into his lap and takes a deep, steadying breath, fingers tangling in the wool, then shakes out the blanket and throws it around his shoulders. It clings to him, wrapping around him tightly. It should be stifling, but it’s a comfort, like being held.  
He lies down on the bed, the blanket curling around him, and he lets himself pretend for a while that it’s Bucky wrapped around him. That he’s not alone.

Bucky comes back that night.  
Steve wakes up in his own bed with Morita sitting on his chest, batting at his face with a coffee and cream coloured paw.  
“Ugh, Mori, quit it,” Steve mutters, giving the cat a gentle push.  
The cat feels like he’s made of granite, solid and heavy and immovable. He bats at Steve’s nose and yowls.  
“Alright, fine,” Steve huffs. “What? You hungry?”  
Morita leaps to the floor and pads to the bedroom door, tail held high.  
Steve forces himself up, tugging his sleep shirt back down from where it’s rucked up to under his armpits. He has an odd flash back to his dream, he had been lying on his back, cold stone against his bare skin, looking up at the night sky.  
He follows Morita out through the living room, stepping over the sketches and canvases and plates daubed with oils that have migrated across the floor.  
Morita yowls again, and Steve can see the other Howlies perched on the couch, looking intently into the kitchen.  
Dum Dum isn’t with them, Steve notices. Morita jumps onto the sofa to perch on top of the back with the others, and watches intently as Steve goes to the kitchen in search of him.  
Bucky is there.

He looks _terrible_. His hair hangs limply over his face and dark smudges under his eyes. Dressed in layers of threadbare clothes, he looks like when Steve first met him. Hunched up. Diminished.  
He is standing by the sink, an open can of sardines in his hand, Dum Dum sitting on the draining board and watching Bucky intently.  
Steve holds his breath and stares as Bucky picks out a whole sardine from the can, oil running down his fingers, and pushes the head into his mouth. He chews once, and sucks the rest of the fish down like a thick strand of spaghetti.  
Steve wonders how long it’s been since Bucky last ate.  
Dum Dum chirps, and Bucky reaches into the can, breaking off a choice morsel of fish and holding it out. Dum Dum nibbles delicately at the offering, licking at the oil coating Bucky's fingers.  
Bucky waits for him to finish before picking out another fish for himself, sucking it down the same way he did the last one, and picking out another piece for Dum Dum.  
There is something almost sacred in the exchange, and Steve takes a step back, not wanting to interrupt them.  
From the couch there is a single, deafeningly loud ‘mrowr’ from Pinky, and Bucky’s head shoots up. For a moment his eyes look ice white, but when they fix on Steve they are blue.

Steve lifts his hand and gives an awkward wave. “Hey, Buck.”  
Bucky fixes his attention on the can and pulls out another sardine, oil dripping onto his wrist as he swallows it whole.  
Dum Dum lets out an irritated chirp, and Bucky glares at the little cat. There is a silent staring contest between them, and Bucky turns away.  
“Hey,” he mumbles. His voice sounds like the distant roar of engines.  
Steve wants to move closer. Steve wants so many things, but he stays in the doorway, hands folded across his chest to keep them from doing anything stupid.  
“Are you…” _Staying?_ The words get stuck in his throat, lodged so tight that he can’t breathe.  
Bucky picks out another fish. Most of the flesh has been picked off for Dum Dum, leaving an elongated ribcage stripped clean between the head and tail. Bucky shoves it into his mouth and chews before swallowing.  
He nods once, sharp and defensive.  
“Good,” Steve breathes, which gets him a startled look from Bucky, quickly obscured by the fall of his tangled hair.  
“Okay,” Steve brushes his hands through his hair. “Um. Good to know.”  
He feels restless, unsure of how to act, painfully aware of how delicate the thread between them is, how easily it could break.  
“So… We’ll talk later?” he blurts out. “You’ll be here later, won’t you?”  
The corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches. “Yeah.”  
Steve nods again, biting his lip to keep from saying anything else and screwing up.  
“I’ll... I’ll see you later, then.”  
Bucky nods, and Steve gets another glimpse of that almost smile before he turns away.  
Steve retreats from the kitchen, leaving Bucky and Dum Dum to their silent communion. He glares at the cats sprawled out on the couch.  
“Alright guys, break it up,” he flaps his hand at them, and could swear that Sawyer is grinning. “Enough with the peanut gallery.”

Bucky isn’t there when Steve wakes up, but there is coffee waiting for him.  
He spends five full minutes just staring at the carafe sitting on the hotplate, something sharp and sweet and aching in his chest. He finally pours a cup, and drinking it feels more like home than the four walls around him.  
He savours every sip, then rinses out his cup and makes himself some green tea before getting on with his day.  
He gathers up the canvases and paints that have spread out across the apartment, pulling everything back to the half of the living room that is roughly defined as his studio. He gathers up his half empty mugs of green tea and unlucky dinner plates that ended up being used as palettes and drops them in the sink, ignoring the way the cats are clustered together on the windowsill, watching him clean up and try to get the place presentable with barely contained amusement.  
“Shut it,” Steve mutters to his furry audience as he sits down to work.  
If he didn’t know better he’d be sure that Jonesy lets out a cackle.

_The wet stone is rough against his back, the air dense with fog that chills to the bone.  
But the weight on him is warm and vast, enveloping like a blanket, like the heat thrown out from a furnace. He pushes his fingers into the mass and it resists briefly before yielding.  
Mouths brush against his skin, their lips teasing, their teeth grazing and nibbling, tongues flickering out to lap up the sweat and semen pooled on his stomach.  
He cracks open one eye and a hand cups his chin, pushing his head back.  
**Don’t look**  
Steve lets his head rest against the stone and looks up at the night sky. The void is not black, but shades of deep navy and indigo and scarlet, overlapping and intertwining like the bodies below._

Steve sits bolt upright, gasping for breath, and reaches down to touch the trail of come on his stomach, cooling and sticky.  
He strips off his sleep shorts, wiping off the mess and tossing them into the laundry before pulling on a fresh pair. He feels oddly guilty, almost furtive, and shakes it off, running his hands through his hair and finding it damp with sweat.  
The glass of water he keeps by his bed is empty, so Steve pushes open his bedroom door and slips out into the living room.  
The cats are nowhere to be seen, but Bucky is curled up on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket. He’s watching a natural history program, the sound on but kept at a low volume.  
Steve watches as on the screen a pair of octopus engage in a complex mating ritual. The male changes colours and displays his suckers before approaching. Steve can only assume that his efforts were found wanting as the female wrestles him into submission and starts to eat him.  
Steve suppresses a shudder and pads quietly into the kitchen to fetch fresh water before heading back out to the living room.  
“Hey,” he murmurs.  
Bucky glances up from the depths of his blanket and nods warily.  
“Can I sit?” Steve points to the couch.  
Bucky nods, shuffling up, and Steve sits down next to him, setting his glass on the coffee table.  
They watch in silence as the program moves on to two more octopus sharing a den. The narrator talks softly as the pair share morsels of food.  
The scene changes to the pair wrestling, positioning themselves beak to beak and twisting their tentacles together until they resemble some sort of speckled orchid.  
The narrator describes the mating process, the male depositing a packet of sperm inside its mate with a specialised tentacle.  
Bucky huddles deeper into his blanket, hiding his blush. His eyes pale and red-rimmed.

“I’m sorry,” Steve murmurs, his gaze fixed on the TV where the narrator mournfully describes the death of male octopus once mated. “I thought… Well, it doesn’t matter. I was being an idiot.”  
“There are so many of you,” Bucky sighs. “And you are all so alone.”  
Steve doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he keeps quiet.  
Bucky watches the dead octopus, its skin bone white, drift across the ocean floor. “We do not bond, my kin and I. We do not take partners, or make nests. Such exchanges are brief and violent, and I do not have the stomach to engage in acts of force.”  
“You didn’t.” Steve wants to reach out to him, but instead stretches his hand across the couch and brushes his fingers along the edge of the blanket. “I just panicked is all. Things went a little fast.”  
Bucky huffs. “You were not at fault,” he rumbles, his voice echoing strangely in the folds of blanket. “I could not see your colours.”  
Steve risks a glance at him, but Bucky is still watching the screen. “My colours? You mean like traffic lights?”  
Bucky meets Steve’s gaze, and raises his eyebrows, questioning.  
“Uh. Traffic lights? Red for stop, green for go?” Steve fiddles with couch cushion he’s sat on, his ears going pink.  
“Green is sickness,” Bucky sounds so confused that Steve has to bite down the urge to laugh.  
“Okay, so not green then,” Steve smiles. “What colour is ‘yes’ then?”  
Bucky shifts, the edge of his blanket slipping across Steve’s thigh. He reaches down the rub his fingers along the ragged edge.  
“White is fear,” he says slowly. “Pink is…” he hesitates, then reaches out a hand to touch at the tip of Steve’s ear before pulling sharply back, his fingers disappearing under the folds of his blanket.  
Steve blushes harder, and Bucky flashes the briefest smile, displaying even white teeth.  
“Blue,” he says finally.  
Steve nods, smoothing down the blanket draped across his thigh. “So… If I were to say I was blue with a little bit of pink?” he asks, his voice wavering.

Bucky pushes the blanket off his shoulders and sits forward, turning his body to Steve.  
Steve doesn’t hesitate, lifts his hands up to cradle Bucky’s firm jaw and stares into his pale blue eyes, watching as they shift into a darker shade, chased with silver.  
Bucky slides his hands down to Steve’s waist, anchoring him in place, the blanket slips around them both and seems to draw them in, pulling Steve closer until there is a scant breath of distance between their lips.  
Bucky waits, patient and still, until Steve bridges that last gap and slots their mouths together.  
Bucky wraps the blanket tighter around them both, and they trade slow, open mouthed kisses, neither pushing for more. Steve’s fingers curl in Bucky’s hair, twisting long strands around his fingers as Bucky flicks his tongue out, the raised circles that cover it catching Steve’s damp lower lip.  
Bucky pulls away, dragging Steve’s lip between his teeth.  
“Colour?” he rasps, his voice thrumming through Steve’s breastbone.  
Steve swallows, his mouth filled with the taste of Bucky, saltwater and seaweed.  
Bucky nips at the line of Steve’s jaw, his tongue leaving faint red pock marks that will be gone by morning. “Colour?”  
“Blue,” Steve gasps, turning and catching Bucky’s mouth with his own.  
Bucky surges forward, pushing him down onto the couch and filling his mouth, swallowing down his low moans and bitten-off gasps and kissing him relentlessly.

Steve opens his eyes. He’s sprawled across the couch, Bucky’s blanket wrapped tightly around him, warm and heavy.  
He rubs his fingers over his lips, sore and a little swollen.  
“Bucky?” he calls softly, but there’s no answer.  
He sits up, muscles stiff from sleeping on the couch, and smiles to himself, a little guilty and a lot flustered. Making out on the couch like a couple of teenagers, honestly.  
A corner of the blanket has managed to get tucked under Steve’s shorts and plastered to his ass. He tugs at it, and it sticks like velcro to his right cheek before giving way with a soft pocking sound.  
“Too early,” Bucky mutters from the depths of the blanket, before rolling over and dozing off again.  
Steve falters. How could he miss that Bucky was still on the couch with him?  
Morita clambers onto the back of the couch, his claws tearing needle holes in the ragged upholstery, and yowls at Steve, presumably for stealing his couch for the night.  
“Sorry, Mori,” Steve murmurs and goes to the kitchen to make tea.  
Dum Dum, tucked into a ball on the counter, gives him a soft little ‘krr?’ Steve rubs the cat's head affectionately while he waits for the kettle to boil.  
Bucky isn’t there when Steve goes back to the sofa. He sets the two mugs of green tea on the coffee table and bundles up the blanket, dropping it on the back of the sofa and sitting down to drink his tea.  
Bucky leans against Steve’s shoulder and mumbles incoherently into his shirt.  
Steve doesn’t jump out of his skin, but it’s a close thing. He hands Bucky a mug, and then risks a quick kiss to his brow. Bucky lets out a happy, low rumble and plasters himself to Steve’s back, still half asleep and soft around the edges. Steve reaches up to comb fingers through Bucky’s hair, smiling as he lets out a sleepy little huff.

Steve is poking at one of his unfinished pieces when a thought occurs to him  
“We should have dinner,” he says to Bucky, stretched out on the carpet by his feet and poking his fingers into one of Steve’s trays of watercolour tablets.  
“We already do,” Bucky mutters, carefully dabbing fingerprints of paint on the thick sheet of paper Steve had laid out for him on the floor.  
“Yeah, but we should go _out_ for dinner,” Steve resists the urge to drip paint onto the back of Bucky’s head.  
Bucky carefully daubs yellow and ochre on the page. “Of what relevance is the change in location?”  
Steve huffs and sets down his brush. “It’s special. It’s a thing you do when you’re… you know...?”  
Bucky looks up at him, cadmium yellow splotches on his nose. “This is a form of courtship?” he asks.  
“Yeah,” Steve bites his lip.  
Bucky hums to himself. “What other courtship rituals are required?”  
Steve blushes. “I don’t know. You go to the movies, or for walks in the park.”  
Bucky rests his chin on the palm of his hand, getting paint on his cheek. “Your species is confusing.”  
Steve chuckles. “Yeah, we’re pretty weird.”  
“I thought I had considered and addressed all the necessities. Shown an ability to provide for a potential mate. Offered sustenance and security.” Bucky looks irritated. “I had failed to consider such nuances. Nor anticipate that you would no longer accept remuneration.”  
Steve thinks this statement over for a few minutes. “Buck?”  
“Uh-huh?”  
“Did you think we were already dating?”  
Bucky looks up at him. “In my defense, you had found and furnished a burrow, and once established called out for a mate.” He sniffs. “You didn’t refuse my advances or try to eat me. Of course I thought we were.”  
Steve chuckles and reaches down to ruffle Bucky's hair, making him hiss like an affronted cat and swat Steve’s hand away.  
“So. Dinner?” Steve combs the tangles in Bucky’s hair with his fingers.  
“Mmm. Okay,” Bucky rumbles. “As you wish.”

Bucky had no preferences as to where they went for dinner. Steve thought about the canned fish in the cupboard, the box of green tea on the counter, and suggested sushi.  
They walk down the street side by side, bumping shoulders, and Steve flashes Bucky a nervous smile before leading the way to a small restaurant not far from the apartment.  
Inside it’s cosy, intimate. Dark green and red painted walls and small tables for two divided by bamboo screens. They decide against taking one of the tables and sit side by side at the long, wooden counter in front of the sushi chef, a cheerful looking Mexican.  
He grins at them both, cleaning down his board and straightening out his boxes of delicately sliced vegetables. The trays of ice with raw fish and crustaceans around him are arranged in neat rows like tablets of watercolour paint, pink and coral and ruby red.  
“Hey fellas, what can I get you folks?” The chef asks, bouncing on his toes. “We got some killer salmon at the moment, and I know it seems freaky to eat it raw, but I swear to god, it’s so good, smooth as butter.”  
Steve smiles and nods, glancing over at Bucky, who is staring at one of the tanks behind the chef.  
There are half a dozen octopus in the tank. One of them, its skin a pallid grey, is crawling its way up the side, tentacles trying to prise off the lid.  
A waitress comes over to take their drinks order, and it takes a minute to get Bucky’s attention. He asks for green tea, and the waitress stares at him for a long minute until he quietly tells her to go.  
She practically runs away, and Steve watches her disappear in quiet confusion. When he turns back, Bucky is glaring at the octopus again, watching with an odd sort of smile while it thumps at the aquarium lid, its skin flashing red and white.  
Steve looks through the menu, a slip of paper on the counter in front of him, while Bucky watches the octopus, murmuring a thank you as a waiter (not the waitress) brings them their tea.

“Bucky?” Steve says softly. “You want to look at the menu?”  
Steve holds up the slip of paper and Bucky takes it but doesn’t look at it, setting it down and pouring them both tea instead.  
“You guys ready to order?” the chef asks hopefully.  
Steve nods. “Dragon rolls, please.”  
“Alright,” the chef whoops, pulling out ingredients. “Good choice, brah. Nice to see a man who’s not afraid of a bit of eel, y’know?”  
He takes a sheet of clingfilm and lays rice in a flat, even layer, adding lengths of eel and cucumber before rolling it up and peeling off the film. Steve watches in silent fascination as he scoops out half an avocado, slices it paper thin and arranges it on top of the roll before cutting it into slices. The chef arranges them on a plate with a garnish of leaves and a dish of soy sauce, adding a lump of wasabi that he pats into a leaf shape with the tip of his knife and pushing it across the counter.  
Steve picks up a pair of chopsticks and carefully picks up a slice, dipping it in the soy and taking a bite. It’s sweet and salty and smoky. Delicious.  
He pushes the plate across to Bucky, nudging his elbow. Bucky stops glaring at the octopus and picks up his chopsticks, plucking a slice from the plate and sniffing it warily before biting into it. He lets out a pleased little hum and finishes the piece.  
“Good,” he murmurs to the chef, who beams delightedly.  
“Come on, pal. You can’t mooch off your date all night, what d’you want?”  
Bucky doesn't even flinch at the word date, and looks over the ice trays, his tongue darting out to touch his upper lip.  
“ _Uni_ ,” he says, pointing to a spiky black ball.  
The chef lets out a happy little squeak and pulls on a pair of gloves. “Good choice, brah. You want nigiri?”  
Bucky shakes his head, and the chef looks somehow even happier, taking a cleaver and chopping the spiked ball in half in a quick, decisive strike. Inside it is creamy yellow. The chef places the two halves on a small dish, adds a few drops of soy and pushes the plate across.  
Bucky slides one half to Steve, who raises his eyebrows doubtfully.  
“Seriously dude, it’s a delicacy,” the chef says, grinning.  
Steve pokes his chopsticks into the yellow mass and pulls out a thick strand, giving Bucky a wary look before taking a sniff.  
It smells like the ocean. Bucky watches him silently as he puts the chopsticks between his lips, chews and swallows. It’s creamy and salty and sweet. Bucky gives him a bright smile, and Steve covers his mouth with the back of his hand, trying not to laugh.  
“Good?” Bucky asks softly.  
“Yeah,” Steve nods. “Really good.”  
They finish their sea urchin and the rest of the Dragon rolls before Steve orders gunkanmaki, watching as the chef forms ovals of rice and wraps them in nori, topping them with a sprinkle of bright orange salmon roe.  
“What can I get you, brah?” the chef asks Bucky.  
He points at the tank, where the pale octopus is still trying to find a way out.  
“Him.”

“The big fella?” the chef asks doubtfully. Bucky nods. “How d’you want him?”  
Bucky’s mouth ticks up. “ _Ikizukuri._ ”  
The chef frowns, but cracks open the lid of the tank and pulls out the octopus.  
“Dude, I’m not gonna tell you how to live and shit, but least let me take out the beak?”  
Bucky shakes his head and curls his hand, palm upwards, flicking his fingers towards himself.  
The chef hesitates, but under Bucky’s stare puts the octopus on a plate and sends it across the counter.  
It cringes and starts to crawl off the plate, its skin a mottled white. Bucky grabs it, holding the head up close to his face and meeting the Creature’s eye.  
“You tell him about me,” Bucky whispers as it bats at his cheek with a tentacle. “You tell him this is mine.”  
Tentacles wrap around his wrist, but Bucky ignores them, he opens his mouth wide and forces the octopus head into his mouth and slowly starts to chew. Teeth sharp and tearing.  
The chef lets out a yelp and steps back, knocking into the tank behind him where the remaining octopus are thrashing, skins flashing red and white.  
Steve’s chopsticks fall to the floor with a clatter and he watches in silence as Bucky sits back in his seat, looking perfectly content as he works his jaw. Tentacles dangle from his mouth, squirming weakly. They wrap around his wrist and try to force their way up his nose, slapping at his face and leaving red sucker marks on his skin.  
Bucky sucks them up like noodles, pausing halfway to swallow and chew some more.  
He delicately pulls the last weakly moving limb from between his teeth and holds it out to Steve, who shakes his head mutely. Bucky shrugs and chews at the end like it's a strawberry twizzler. When he’s finished he dabs at his mouth with the back of his hand, then picks up his tea and takes a sip, glancing over at Steve and his uneaten rolls.  
“You’re not hungry?” Bucky asks quietly.  
Steve shakes his head dumbly, and Bucky looks troubled.  
“You’re upset,” he murmurs.  
Steve shakes his head quickly. “No, I’m fine. I just…” He has no idea how to explain what’s wrong.  
“Dude, that was fucked up,” the chef says. Loudly.  
Bucky looks between them, confused and contrite. “This is not appropriate courtship behaviour?”  
Steve shakes his head and calls the waiter over for their bill.  
“Dude, if you pulled a stunt like that courting me your ass would be out the door so fast it would, like, rip a hole in the space time continuum,” the chef announces. He looks at Bucky's troubled expression and takes pity. “You seem like a nice enough guy, and your sweetheart here hasn’t checked out yet.”  
Steve bites his lip as the chef pulls off his glove and reaches over to pat Bucky on the shoulder. “No crazy stunts on date night, you feel?”  
Bucky pulls the bill away from Steve and frowns, pulling a handful of notes out of his pocket and smoothing them out carefully.  
“I feel,” he murmurs.

They don’t go straight back to the apartment. Bucky is much too quiet, lost in thought. Steve takes his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.  
“Come on, let’s go for a walk,” he says softly.  
Bucky doesn’t answer, just leans into his shoulder and grasps his hand a little more firmly in return.  
Steve takes the lead, and they make their way through the busy streets to Prospect park.  
Bucky lets out a low, pleased rumble at the sight of the lake, and tugs Steve towards it. Steve chuckles and follows him along the grass down to the water's edge. Bucky sits down, his knees drawn up under his chin, and stares out across the water.  
Steve sits next to him, his feet stretched out towards the lake, and lets his head rest on Bucky’s shoulder.  
“Are you still mad at me?” Bucky asks.  
Steve shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not mad. You just surprised me is all.”  
Bucky turns and kisses the top of Steve’s head. Steve doesn’t much like the top of his head getting all the attention and leans back, threading his fingers in Bucky’s hair and pulling him down for a kiss.  
“I like you, weird or otherwise,” he breathes against Bucky’s lips then kisses him, in little tastes and sips until he is breathless.

Morita climbs onto Steve’s lap and yowls.  
“Not now, Mori. I’m painting,” Steve says, picking up the cream coloured lump of fur and putting him on the floor. Morita yowls and bats at his water glass, knocking it over. It doesn’t spill onto his painting, but it’s close. Steve huffs and picks up the glass, grabbing a spare cloth to throw on the puddle of muddy coloured water that’s staining the carpet.  
He takes the glass to the kitchen and finds Bucky in a staring match with Dum Dum at the kitchen table.  
“You guys okay?” Steve asks as Bucky rests his chin on the table and gives Dum Dum a pleading look. The cat pats him on the nose with a little black paw.  
Bucky doesn’t answer, still glaring at Dum Dum while Steve rinses his brushes and refills the glass with clean water.  
“Coney Island,” Bucky says suddenly.  
Steve glances over. “Sorry?”  
“Coney Island,” Bucky repeats, sitting up straighter. “For the _aphelion_ , and though my kind would perform such rites upon the _perihelion_ , your species favours the light of the star, and thus I must adapt accordingly.”  
Steve fetches a bottle of water from the refrigerator. “Try again, Buck?”  
“We should go to the seaside.”  
Steve nods and twists the cap off his bottle. “Yeah, that sounds good. You want to go tomorrow?”  
Bucky shakes his head. “The aphelion, Steve. When the star touches the Earth.”  
“The star…” Steve has gotten better at translating Bucky speak over the last few months. “Do you mean Midsummer?”  
Bucky nods, drawing arabesques on the tabletop with his finger instead of looking up.  
“That’s a whole month away, Buck. And Coney Island in July will be packed.”  
Dum Dum lets out a soft mew.  
“But it’s tradition,” Bucky whines.  
The cat closes his eyes and lets out a loud purr.  
Bucky sits back, looking nervous. “Tomorrow.”

Bucky is a restless bundle of energy by morning, half impatient to get going and half trying to call it all off. Steve watches him prowl around the apartment, putting the cats in a foul mood with his fidgeting, and shying away from Steve’s attempts to soothe him.  
Steve could hardly blame him, he felt wound up too, as if he was on the verge of something. He sighs and packs away his materials, far too keyed up to get anything useful done.  
He couldn’t really blame Bucky. He’d asked for slow, and that was what he’d got. Aside from kissing, and there was a lot of kissing, Bucky’s hands never went south of the equator. And there was no relieving any stress in the bathroom, either. Not when there was a cat in the sink watching your every move.  
Steve washes up and changes into his outside-world clothes, ones that only have the odd smudges of paint and oil pastel on them, and tells Bucky to get his shoes on.  
They take the subway, and sit pressed close together on one of the narrow benches, Bucky’s chin resting on Steve’s shoulder, his lips in Steve’s hair.

Bucky is enthralled by Luna Park, dragging Steve from one attraction to the next like an excitable kid, whatever had set off his nerves that morning long forgotten.  
They decide against going on the Cyclone, but stop to watch the people willing to ride around on a really old ride made of really old wood.  
They pass hot dog stands, but Steve doesn’t suggest getting any, remembering Bucky’s aversion to meat. They eat fat, greasy slices of pizza while watching the Wonder Wheel, and Bucky takes a liking to candy floss. His lips are stained pink by the spun sugar, his stolen kisses sticky and sweet.  
When they’ve had enough of the crowds and the attractions they walk down to the beach, moving in no particular direction, until the tourists are far behind them. Bucky slips off his boots and wriggles his toes in the warm sand, and they walk along the tideline, warm water washing over their feet with every fourth wave.  
Steve takes off his shoes and socks, and they leave both pairs in a heap by an outcropping of rocks revealed by the receding tide while they paddle in the shallows.  
They chase each other back and forth across the wet sand, playing tag until the moment they are not playing. Suddenly it’s the most important challenge Bucky has ever faced to catch Steve, slippery and fast moving and just out of reach. Steve tips his head back and laughs, and the late afternoon catches Bucky’s eyes and makes them shine like silver.

“What are your colours?” Bucky calls from the water, the tide lapping around his knees, soaking his jeans.  
“Blue,” Steve calls back from the sand. From his angle Bucky is a shape silhouetted against the setting sun, blurred around the edges. “Fair bit of pink.”  
Bucky’s eyes shine like stars and he prowls closer.  
Steve dodges, laughing wildly until Bucky catches him and pulls him down. They wrestle, rolling over and over and laughing breathlessly, kicking up the damp sand until Bucky’s breath is hot in Steve’s mouth.  
Saltwater soaks into Steve’s clothes, sand presses against his back, and when he looks up he is almost surprised to see a bruising sky and the distant fairground.  
Bucky presses a thumb to his chin, getting his attention.  
“What are your colours?” His voice is a low rumble that sends goosebumps across Steve’s skin.  
“Pink,” he whispers. “Look up.”  
Bucky turns to look at the setting sun, the sky ablaze with pink and gold and peach, and murmurs something in a language Steve doesn’t recognise. Threads fingers in his short blond hair, pulling him in for a kiss, bruising and sweet.  
Steve grips him by the hips, grinding the hard length of his cock against the coarse wet fabric of his jeans. Bucky hums into his mouth, stroking his rough tongue across Steve’s teeth and swiping it in deeper, the raised circles suckering against the roof of his mouth.  
Bucky pulls away long enough for Steve to catch his breath, nibbling at the line of his jaw.  
“Jesus, Buck,” Steve huffs.  
Bucky rumbles, deep in his chest, and brushes the tips of his fingers across Steve’s cheek.  
“Would you cleave yourself to me?” he murmurs, his lips brushing against Steve’s ear. “Would you open yourself to me, as the river opens to the ocean? And I would flood your veins with the light of long extinguished stars.”  
Steve shivers with something primal and he forgets how to breathe.  
“You mean… Like, sex?”  
Bucky chuckles and nibbles at the lobe of Steve’s ear. “Yeah. That too.”  
Steve tightens his grip on Bucky’s waist. “Yes,” he turns his head and kisses Bucky, soft and sweet. “Yes, yes, how many times do I gotta say yes?”

Bucky kisses him, fierce and joyful, before pulling away again.  
Steve whines, long and low, trying to keep a hold of him, but Bucky slips out of his grip. Steve sits up, watching as Bucky gets smoothly to his feet, slowly walking backwards towards the tide. His silvery eyes makes Steve’s pulse hammer in his throat, and Bucky strips off his shirt and tosses it onto the sand, revealing tanned, smooth muscles. He steps into the water as the setting sun throws everything into blinding light and deep shadows.  
Bucky keeps moving, step after slow, sinuous step into the sea, darkness spreading around him. He lifts up his hands and beckons Steve towards him.  
Steve gets to his feet and steps closer, and the darkness spreads out across the tide, black and viscous and filled with silvery eyes.  
“Bucky...?” Steve hesitates.  
Bucky is a silhouette against the fading light, his edges fuzzy and indistinct and vast.  
Steve can’t breathe.  
He can’t breathe, and there is a monster in the water where something man-shaped had stood. He opens his mouth and a high pitched, terrible sound escapes.  
If he licks his lips he can taste a trace of sugar. There are eyes in the water, blinking.  
The monster spreads out like a heavy wool blanket, a dozen pairs of eyes, mismatched and watching, scattered across its surface.  
The monster reaches out to him, and the world falls to darkness.


	3. The Colours out of Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I will show you the chthonic chambers filled with stars and the marsh-lights of _Xoth_. You will light up the void with your song. The starspawn will praise you and each damp thing that shakes through creation will know that you are _mine_.”  
>  Steve huffs. “I’m a terrible singer, I can’t carry a tune.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter, folks. Here be tentacles. Like, so many tentacles.
> 
> Thank you to Ria, for being a treasure and willing co-conspiritor in the Great Flap-Flap Heist of London  
> (*clenches fist* next time we will not fail)
> 
> Thank you to Krycekasks for keeping me writing, and Obsessivereader for knocking it into shape when it was written.  
> Special thanks to Moony and Trish for, well, everything.
> 
> Want to complain about Sebastian Stan and his annoying face? Come find me on [Tumblr](http://thelittleblackfox.tumblr.com)

Steve wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by beeping machines.  
Sam is sitting in a chair by his side, thumbing through a magazine. Sam looks up when Steve lets out a soft grunt, barely a rasp of air but it’s enough to get his attention.  
“Hey, man,” Sam says, his voice hushed. “Nearly lost you there.”  
Steve’s mouth is painfully dry, and he tries to swallow.  
“Bucky?” he murmurs.  
Sam fetches him a cup of water, holding it to his lips while he drinks. “Easy, easy. Take it slow.”  
He pulls the cup away before Steve is done drinking, putting it down on the bedside table.  
“You know where you are”  
Steve nods, wiggling the finger that has a blood pressure monitor clipped to it. “I hope it’s a hospital.”  
Sam nods, but doesn’t laugh. “You have any idea how you got here?”  
Steve tries to concentrate, but his thoughts are disjointed. Odd flashes of images and sensations. The light on water like a thousand silver eyes. A wide smile floating in a void. Sand under his bare feet and the taste of sugar in his mouth.  
“Coney Island,” he says slowly.  
“That’s right,” Sam says patiently. “Some people found you on the beach. You’d had an aneurysm.”  
Steve blinks slowly. “We were on a date.”  
Sam pours more water into the cup. “You were on a date? With who?”  
“My…” Steve shakes his head. He should know this. He should know. But it’s fading the more he wakes up, drifting out of his reach.  
“My roommate,” he says finally. “Bug...? Buckshot?” He lets his head sink into the pillow.  
Sam hums thoughtfully. “You were talking about renting out your Ma’s room a while back. Don’t think you got around to it.”  
“I did though,” Steve closes his eyes, tries to recall his roommate. Blue eyes. Chestnut hair. Something monstrous and kind, terrible and... Lonely.  
Sam nods. He has his therapist face on. “What was he like, this roommate?”  
Steve frowns. It’s all vanishing, breaking up like sunlight on water.  
“He was weird, but… I liked that he was weird.”  
Sam huffs at that. “Well you wouldn’t live in New York otherwise.”  
“We had cats,” Steve reaches for the water, wincing when the cannula in the back of his hand gets tugged, and Sam passes him the cup.  
“That’s a hell of a dream.”  
“It wasn’t a dream,” Steve mutters between sips.  
Sam reaches beside the bed and presses the call for assistance button.  
“Steve,” he says gently. “You had an aneurysm. You were found half-dead on the beach.”  
“Sam…”  
“If this guy were real, where is he now?”  
Steve plucks at a loose thread on his blanket. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t know.

They have to wait for most of the day before they’re seen by a doctor. Sam keeps Steve distracted, reading out articles from his magazine and talking about the recent change in weather, a cold snap that had environmental agencies in a panic.  
Steve listens and tries to stay awake, nodding absently and plucking at the loose threads of his blanket. Something plucks at him, a vague sensation of a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, heavy dark wool that smelled like rain on the outgoing tide.  
They are finally seen by Dr Banner, a haggard looking man with wire-rimmed glasses and a tangle of greying curls poking out from his wooly hat. He reads through Steve’s chart, humming under his breath and making notes before finally paying attention to him.  
“Well, Mr Rogers. You are an extremely lucky man.”  
Steve bites the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t feel lucky, he feels like he’s lost something. Something important.  
“You suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage. Most people end up dead or with severe brain damage, so yes, I would say you are very lucky.” The doctor checks over his notes. “We performed an endovascular repair, took some doing, and you had us all nervous as hell, but you should make a full recovery.”  
“Uh. Thank you,” Steve says slowly. “When can I go home?”  
“Now, wait a minute,” Sam cuts in. “He’s been experiencing some altered states. His recall of events leading up to the aneurysm are faulty.”  
Dr Banner nods. “Hallucinations are common in these situations. Mr Rogers, at any point were you considering causing harm to yourself or anyone else?”  
Steve shakes his head. “Of course not.”  
“Were you experiencing feelings of paranoia?” Another shake of his head. “Have you experienced any hallucinations since you woke up?”  
“Pretty sure you’re real,” Steve tries to joke.  
The doctor gives him a brief smile. “Mr Wilson, I appreciate your concern. However if Mr Rogers is neither a danger to himself or others, there’s little I am able to do here.”  
Sam grumbles quietly, but doesn’t argue further.  
Dr Banner signs the chart with an illegible scrawl. “We’ll be keeping you overnight for observation, but barring any complications you should be discharged in the morning. We’ll prescribe you some medication for your blood pressure. Do you smoke?”  
Steve almost misses the question, but shakes his head.  
“Good. You may experience some headaches and memory problems, and you’ll need to take it easy for a week or two. No driving or strenuous activity for at least two weeks, okay?”  
The doctor gives him a last, tired smile, and leaves for his next patient.

The nurse, a pretty but overworked blonde whose name tag read ‘Sharon’ kicks Sam out at the end of visiting hours.  
“Come on, haven’t you got a home to go to?” she asks impatiently.  
“Sorry, man, gotta go!” Sam grins at Steve. “Can’t argue with the pretty lady.”  
Steve huffs. “Go on, Sam. I’ll be fine.”  
“You can bring him a change of clothes tomorrow,” she says, checking Steve’s monitor. “Bring a coat, they said on the news that there’s a frost tonight.”  
“Frost in June? Hell, there’s me thinking global warming would make things, y’know, warmer.”  
Steve tunes out Sam flirting with the nurse and closes his eyes, hoping that maybe they’d think he’d fallen asleep and leave him alone.  
They talk softly around him. Sam, who has always been better at chatting up women, or talking to people in general than Steve, manages to get the Nurse’s number before he leaves.  
He pats Steve on the leg. “Glad you’re alive, man. Sleep easy.”  
Steve feels guilty but keeps his eyes closed, and eventually he does fall asleep.

Sam comes back in the morning with clean clothes and a pair of shoes. Steve has a flash of memory: a pair of worn, sand crusted boots left by an outcrop of rocks, his missing shoes beside them.  
It seems important, but he can’t understand why.  
The cannula and blood pressure clip are removed, and he fidgets with the dressing on the back of his hand while he waits for his discharge papers.  
Sam spends most of the time at the Nurses station, half flirting with Sharon, half trying to get the discharge hurried up. He finally reappears and tells Steve they’re good to go.  
Steve signs himself out, and Sam directs him to the parking lot. There is frost on the concrete, a sharp bite in the air, and Sam insists on taking Steve’s arm.  
“I’m fine, Sam. I can walk,” Steve grumbles.  
“Yeah, well I don’t want you cracking your head open. You got lucky once, you know?”  
“You drove here?” Steve asks, surprised, as Sam unlocks his 4x4 and opens the passenger side door.  
“Yeah, public transport is down, due to the weather. They got snow in Manhattan.”  
“Holy shit,” Steve mutters as they drive off, gazing out the window at the ice dusted streets.

“You sure you’re gonna be alright?” Sam asks in his best therapist voice. Again.  
“Sam, I’ll be fine,” Steve mutters, jiggling his keys in the lock to his apartment.  
He pushes open the door and takes a look around.  
There are sketchbooks and pastels scattered across the living room. Half-empty mugs of coffee and dinner plates used as easels.  
There are no cats, no roommate, no heavy wool blanket draped across the couch.  
There is an ache in Steve’s heart, like grief.  
“Really,” he says quietly. “I’m fine.”  
He thanks Sam again and says goodbye before nudging the door closed, the lock clicking into place.  
He walks around the apartment, looking closely. Nothing is out of place. There is no kettle on the counter, no box of green tea. No cat sleeping beside the coffeemaker.  
He checks the cupboards for cans of sardines. Nothing.  
He sits at the kitchen table and stares at the wall where a framed picture hangs.  
He can’t even remember what this roommate looked like, what his name was anymore. So why did it bother him?  
He drums his fingers on the table. “Fuck.”

Steve tells himself that it’s because he needs groceries. In truth, he’s looking for cats.  
He walks down to the local bodega, then walks straight past it, along the frozen street.  
It takes five minutes before he sees one.  
He stops and crouches down, making soft clicking noises at the large, cream coloured cat sitting on a fire escape of an apartment block. The cat eyes him disdainfully.  
“Puss. C’mon cat, come here a minute.”  
The cat climbs up the fire escape and disappears into an open window.  
Steve straightens up with a sigh and walks a little further, spotting a ginger cat and calling out to it. The cat meows at him, but runs off when he tries to approach.  
Steve doesn’t see any more after that. He finds a bodega and fills a basket with coffee and juice and canned sardines. He’s on his way out the door, bag in hand, when he spots a cat, a tiny little puff of black fur sunning itself on the stoop across the street. After a minute of hesitation he squares his shoulders and goes over to say hello. The little creature lets out a soft ‘prrp’ in greeting.  
“Hey, puss,” he murmurs, stroking the cat’s velvety nose.  
It lets out a loud purr and climbs into his arms, sharp little claws digging into his shirt, and Steve’s heart thumps painfully.  
“I know you, don’t I?” he says softly.  
The cat purrs and headbuts his chin.  
“Why don’t I remember you?” Steve wonders as the cat climbs onto his shoulder, tucking itself into the fleece-lined collar of his coat.  
He walks back to his apartment, the cat curled up against his throat, and puts away his groceries. He makes dinner, and empties out a can of sardines onto a plate for the cat, picking out the choicest lumps of fish and holding them out for the cat to nibble at delicately.  
“Was he real?” Steve asks the cat as he washes the dishes.  
It trills at him, and outside snow begins to fall.

By morning the city is buried under a blanket of snow.  
It fell all night long, an endless flurry of fat, white flakes that finally exhausted itself just before dawn. The city is put in lockdown, the quarter-hourly reports on TV warning people to stay in their homes, do not search for loved ones caught out in the snow.  
The phrase is repeated often enough to catch Steve’s attention. Stay inside the reporters insist. Don’t go looking they warn over and over.  
There are cats in the apartment.  
Steve hadn’t left the windows open, the front door had been locked. Still, there are cats in the apartment. The cream one with the coffee coloured paws he had seen the previous day. The ginger one that had run away. The calico and the black and white he hasn’t seen before but he knows them.  
They are all sat on the couch, watching him as he gets dressed, as he pulls on thick socks and heavy boots.  
Steve buttons up his coat and looks at the peanut gallery expectantly.  
“You know where he is?” he asks, tucking the little black cat into the collar of his coat. “Show me.”

The sky is overcast, heavy clouds looming over the city, but the thick snow glows under the street lights, muffling sound and casting an eerie light over the deserted streets, the cars parked or abandoned and buried under the snowfall.  
The snowdrifts have blocked off the access to the street, reaching up past the windows of the ground floor apartments, so Steve follows the cats down the fire escape. It’s barely a step from the bottom rung to the layer of pure, white snow.  
The cats trot nimbly across the thick crust, while Steve sinks a few inches with each step. The one he’s pretty sure is called Sawyer takes the lead, pausing occasionally to sniff the air before padding on.  
They walk through the silent streets, the lamps that light the way are shoulder height, the traffic lights hanging like lanterns on poles. Steve can brush snow off the street signs they pass. Eastern Parkway. Bedford Avenue. Empire Boulevard. Prospect Park.  
The cats scatter in different directions when he reaches the park. Even the one tucked into the collar of his coat pricks at his skin and meows to be let down. He sets the bundle of fur carefully on the snow and watches him strut away, tail held high.  
Steve walks down to the lake, frozen solid and glassy looking amongst the white drifts.  
There is someone there.  
He can make out a figure hunched up on the edge of the lake. Bowed head hidden by a curtain of dark hair, damp and crusted with snowflakes. He is half buried in the snow, as if he had sat down during the storm and not moved since.

With every step he takes towards the figure, Steve _remembers_.  
He remembers oil trickling down fingers. The weight of a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, eyes blinking along its ragged edges. Lips that tasted of the ocean and a tongue that left marks on his skin. He remembers the ways that he had been warned, and how he didn’t listen. He remembers a name that no human voice can utter.  
He remembers Bucky.

Steve sits down in the snow next to Bucky, the frozen crust cracking and shifting around him.  
There are frozen droplets on Bucky’s cheeks. His eyes are cloudy white.  
“Hey, Buck.”  
“Damnation be upon this wretched plane,” Bucky’s teeth chatter. “Let the sons of _Yog-Sothoth_ lay waste to it all, I am done with it.” He wipes his nose on his frozen sleeve. “I’ll not take this sorry carcass with me when I depart, nor will I miss it.”  
“I like your sorry carcass,” Steve murmurs.  
Bucky closes his eyes. “I am the one who comes in the dark, I am endless night.”  
Steve reaches out and brushes a strand of Bucky’s hair back, tucking it behind his ear.  
“Yeah, Buck. I know you are.”  
Bucky sniffs. “You were supposed to forget.”  
Steve brushes the beads of ice off his cheek, and they sparkle and shatter on the frozen snow.  
“How could I forget my best guy?” Steve asks, and pulls Bucky into his arms.  
Bucky curls up against him, head tucked under Steve’s chin. He’s cold, his fingers stiff and pale.  
“Jeez, Buck. You’re freezing,” Steve frets, chafing his palms along Bucky’s arms. He’s still dressed in the clothes he wore to Coney Island, a thin shirt and jeans.  
“I was formed from the void,” Bucky intones, though the effect is spoiled by his teeth chattering. Steve unfastens his coat and tucks Bucky under the fleece lining, shivering when cold hands grip the back of his t-shirt.  
“You were dead,” Bucky tightens his hold. “You were laughing. And then you were dead.”  
Steve kisses the top of Bucky’s head. “Yeah. I’m sorry I scared you.”  
Bucky growls. “I am the crawling chaos, the devourer of souls. I don’t get _scared_.” He sniffs. “Don’t do it again.”  
Steve curls his fingers in the damp hair at the nape of Bucky's neck and kisses his forehead, his closed eyes, the bridge of his nose and finally his mouth. Kiss after kiss until his lips are warm and pliant.

The cats are waiting for them when Steve finally pulls Bucky to his feet and leads him through the park. They are gathered together on a snowdrift by the entrance and watching with uncontained glee.  
“I might have known,” Bucky grumbles, but inclines his head to Dum Dum and the others before following the procession of cats out onto the deserted streets.  
The heavy clouds thin out and slowly disperse overhead, and the cats chase each other across the snow.  
Bucky keeps his arm around Steve’s waist, tucked into his coat as they walk side by side. Steve’s arm is draped around his shoulders, and by the time they reach the apartment Bucky has warmed up a little.  
Steve still worries, following the cats up the fire escape and climbing back through the open window.  
The cats refuse to come inside, so Steve leaves the window open a crack in case they change their minds.

There is a kettle and a box of green tea on the counter, along with Bucky’s mug. Something jagged in Steve’s heart shifts and settles into place, and he fills the kettle to make tea.  
He kicks off his shoes and shrugs off his coat, and watches Bucky walk a little circuit around the living room, shedding his shoes with each step, barefoot and dripping onto the carpet.  
Steve fetches a clean towel from the bathroom and waves Bucky over to the couch.  
“Come here. I’m sure even unnamable horrors can catch a chill if they get cold and wet.”  
Bucky huffs at him but sidles closer, almost wary.  
Steve tugs at the hem of Bucky’s shirt. “You okay with this coming off?”  
Bucky nods and lets Steve drag the soaking fabric over his head, dropping it on the coffee table with a wet slap. Steve wraps the towel around Bucky’s shoulders, rubbing along his arms to warm him up.  
Bucky reaches out and grasps the hem of Steve’s sweater. He gives it a tug, silent, questioning. Steve’s breath catches, and he nods, pulling off his shirt and sweater in one. He drops them on the back of the couch and turns back to Bucky, who raises a hand and presses it in the center of Steve’s bare chest.  
“You okay, Buck?” Steve murmurs, covering Bucky’s hand with his own.  
Bucky doesn’t answer, just leans forward and kisses him.

The first kiss is cautious. A brief touch of lips. The second is bolder, Bucky’s tongue darts out, suckering briefly against Steve’s lower lip before retreating, and Steve chases after it with his own.  
It’s not the same as the first kiss in the kitchen, frantic and rough. Nor is it like the last one overlooking the lake at Prospect Park, chilled skin and careful touches. It builds gradually as they trade sweet, lazy kisses, hands sliding across warming skin.  
Steve walks Bucky towards the couch and eases him down onto the cushions, dropping to his knees between Bucky’s splayed open thighs and slipping thumbs into the waistband of his damp jeans.  
Bucky pulls back sharply. “Don’t,” he whispers.  
“It’s okay,” Steve strokes his hands up Bucky’s sides. “It’s okay.”  
Bucky shakes his head. “Don’t look.”  
Steve cradles Bucky’s face in his hands and kisses him, sliding their tongues together until Bucky relaxes into his touch.  
“Trust me,” Steve whispers against his lips. “Will you trust me?”  
Bucky nods, and doesn’t resist when Steve’s hands fall to the fastening of his jeans and works the stiff, wet fabric open.  
Bucky braces his arms against the couch and lifts his hips, giving Steve the opportunity to pull down his jeans, easing them down his thighs and shoving them to one side. Bucky draws up his knees, shivering when Steve strokes up his calves and leans up to kiss him, slow and sweet, until Bucky uncurls. Steve kisses him one last time, murmuring reassurances, and looks down.  
It’s not what he had expected.

Steve hadn’t really thought he’d face a cock like his own, hard and straining in his pants. Not after what happened at Coney Island. Maybe it was like Bucky’s tongue, pitted with faint suckers and ridges, maybe something else entirely. He hadn’t considered _it_ would be _them._  
Steve slides his hands up Bucky’s thighs and stares down at the cluster of tentacles shifting and squirming between Bucky’s legs.  
“Oh,” he breathes.  
The one in the center is the longest, smooth-skinned and thick enough to wrap a thumb and forefinger around and tapered to a bevelled point, a hole in the tip. It is circled by three more, a little shorter and blunter and slimmer. Around those are another three, short and slender, curling and uncurling around the central mass. They are ringed by thready little feelers, maybe a dozen or so, delicate little tendrils like a sea anemone.  
He sits back and looks up at Bucky, whose eyes are pale and ringed with red.  
“Can I..?” he asks, and Bucky gives a single, sharp nod.  
Steve pushes his fingers into the nest of tentacles, and Bucky lets out a low moan. The appendages wrap around Steve’s fingers, warm and firm. He curls his thumb and finger around the longest one and squeezes gently, hearing the dull thump of Bucky smacking his head against the back of the couch.  
Steve chuckles and draws his circled thumb and finger up the length of the main appendage, twisting his wrist and brushing his thumb across the hole at the tip. It comes away sticky, and Bucky groans, his thighs trembling.  
Steve pushes his hand back into the mass, the fine tendrils tickling as they brush against his skin. He curls his fist around the largest tentacle again, stroking it in a long, slow pull.  
Bucky squirms, his knees pressing into Steve’s hips, hands digging into the couch cushions.  
Steve bows his head and slides the tip into his mouth, sucking gently. Bucky throws his head back and utters a string of sounds, bass notes that reverberate through Steve’s bones, his hands clutching at Steve’s shoulders.  
Steve hums and points his tongue, pushing it against the hole in the tip, feeling it give way a little.  
Bucky curls in on himself, pushing his fingers into the short hairs at the nape of Steve’s neck. He shivers and keens softly as Steve swallows, tasting brine and minerals, before sucking more tentacle into his mouth. It curls around his tongue, twisting away from the back of his throat. The other appendages stroke at Steve’s cheeks, at his lips, brushing away the saliva gathering at the corners of his mouth. The larger three tap carefully at where his lips are sealed around the main tentacle, darting nervously until Steve opens his mouth in invitation and they push their way in.  
His mouth feels so full. He swallows and swallows, flicking his tongue back and forth as the tentacles twist and curl, exploring the roof of his mouth and the back of his teeth. He can hear Bucky panting for breath, hands fisted in Steve’s hair, just shy of pulling. He feels the moment that the base of the main tentacle start to swell.

Bucky lets out a gasp and relaxes his grip on Steve’s hair, hands moving to his broad shoulders and pushing gently. The tentacles retract, slipping out of Steve’s mouth reluctantly.  
Steve pulls away, wiping the spit off his chin with the back of his hand. “You okay?”  
Bucky’s eyes are dark, almost navy, and he hooks his hands under Steve’s arms and drags him up, fastening their mouths together and kissing him, rough and dirty and desperate.  
Steve lets Bucky manhandle him onto the couch and crawl on top of him, fumbling with the fastening on his pants and pushing them down. Steve kicks them off, groaning when Bucky wraps a hand around his hard cock and licks into his mouth, messy and beautiful.  
Steve braces his feet on the couch cushions and thrust up into Bucky’s fist, whining in frustration when Bucky pulls his hand away and uses it to support his weight, hovering over Steve.  
Steve breaks the kiss to look down between them, and sees Bucky line up their bodies, the tentacles reaching out to wrap round Steve’s cock in a knotty, tangled mass. Steve groans as Bucky lowers down, a hand on Steve’s thigh to guide himself, and starts to thrust.  
Steve moans, pulling Bucky in and kissing him again, scraping his teeth along the suckers and ridges on his tongue. Bucky grins against his mouth, nipping at his lips in return and rocking against him.  
Steve can feel everything; the tentacles that squeeze and twist around his cock, that cradle his balls and reach across his perineum to brush against the furl of muscle hidden there. The main appendage swells at the base, a bulge working its way up its smooth, sinuous length and pressing sweetly against his cock.  
Bucky whines into Steve’s mouth, his movements erratic, his body trembling. Steve strokes down his spine, sweat-damp and undulating, murmuring to him, coaxing him on.  
The main appendage trembles, and Steve feels it swell up and spit out a hot, gelatinous sac, trapped between their stomachs. Bucky squeezes down on Steve’s cock, making him arch his back and come, feeling the sac burst and spill hot fluid across his chest.

Bucky collapses against him, panting for breath and tucking his face in the crook of Steve’s shoulder.  
Steve strokes a thumb across the nape of Bucky’s neck, feeling him blur around the edges. He blinks sleepily and remembers a doleful narrator’s voice, a bone white octopus floating in the current.  
“Buck?” Steve whispers. Bucky groans and shifts to his side, his tentacles still gently cradling Steve’s softening cock.  
“Mmmph?” he manages.  
“You… you don’t die after sex do you?” Steve asks warily, watching as Bucky’s edges start to get dark and ragged.  
Bucky opens his eyes, pale blue, and scowls. “No.”  
Steve huffs and grabs his shirt off the floor, wiping up the mess between them and tossing it to one side. Bucky curls around him, kissing his shoulder and sprawling over him, sticky and sated. Steve listens to Bucky’s breathing slow, feels him settle and spread out, a warm heavy weight around him, dark as the void and scattered with sleepy, half-lidded eyes.

Steve wakes up to half a dozen cats watching from their position on the back of the couch, practically grinning at him.  
Bucky is still out of it, wrapping Steve up from shoulders to feet in a swathe of darkness littered with closed eyes. There are mouths in there too, snoring softly. Steve is pretty sure he has one plastered over his right asscheek.  
He glares at the peanut gallery. “Alright, show's over.”  
The cats just make themselves more comfortable. Steve huffs and gets up, pulling Bucky with him and gently easing his legs free of the clinging blanket.  
_Ouch_. Yeah, those are definitely teeth. Steve ignores the cats sniggering and carefully pulls the drape of cloth away from there with a suckering pop. A half dozen mouths whine his name sleepily and settle down again, and Steve gathers up Bucky’s trailing edges and goes to his bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him and crawling into bed.

“So when do I get to meet this guy of yours?” Sam asks, helping himself to a bottle of water from the refrigerator and cracking it open. He’s still sulking over Steve outrunning him, but not in enough of a huff to ignore Dum Dum, who stands up on the counter and stretches, his tail quivering. Sam scoops up the little cat and carries him into the living room.  
“You know your daddy think’s he’s all that,” he tells Dum Dum in a sing-song voice. “But I knew him when he was a ninety-five pound asshole.”  
Steve snorts and fetches his own water. “Stop tattling on me, Sam.”  
“I could kick his ass then, and I can kick it now,” Sam stage whispers in the cat's ear. Dum Dum trills curiously, head to one side.  
“You’ve already met him,” Steve points out, going over to the window to glare at his latest canvas, the night sky over Coney Island. He’s still not happy with it, though he suspects that it’s partly due to sentiment. And maybe some anticipation. He pushes the thought aside and gives Sawyer, draped across the windowsill, a scratch between the ears.  
“Yeah, but he was soaking wet and pissed off at the time.”  
Steve grins to himself. Yeah, Bucky had been pissed. He hadn’t been impressed with the offer of a bucket to sleep in either.  
He goes over to the bedroom and cracks open the door. There is a blanket draped across the bed, half trailing onto the floor.  
“Buck?” he calls softly, slipping into the room. “You awake?”  
A grumble reverberates from the mattress in a dozen voices, low and rasping. Steve walks over to the bed and picks the blanket off the floor, tucking it back in amongst the rest. He feels lips brush across his wrist and retreats from the room.  
“He’s kind of out of it,” Steve explains, joining Sam on the couch. “Another time?”  
“He alright?” Sam asks in his best therapist voice.  
Steve considers lying, then thinks, well. Fuck it.  
“Maintaining his human form takes a lot of energy, so sometimes he needs to shift into a form that doesn’t cause so much strain. He’s basically a quilt with eyes at the moment.”  
Sam blinks, then nods sagely. “Doesn’t hurt to give yourself a duvet day now and then.”  
Steve nods. “Yeah. Duvet day,” he agrees, trying not to laugh.

“You alright?” Bucky murmurs gently.  
Steve sits up a little straighter in his seat and nods. “Kind of nervous. Last time we did this it… Didn’t end well.”  
Bucky’s hand is warm in his, squeezing gently. “We don’t have to. We can stay as we are.” He smiles. “I like how we are.”  
Steve glances around the carriage. There are only a handful of people on the subway this late in the day, so he leans over and kisses Bucky, a brief brush of lips before pulling back.  
“Tell me again?” he says softly, stroking his thumb along the side of Bucky’s index finger.  
Bucky hums, pleased, and rests his chin on Steve’s shoulder.  
“The aphelion is when the star is furthest from this world, and all things are balanced on the cusp of light and darkness. The great wheel turns, and all must turn with it.”  
Steve rests his cheek on Bucky’s head and breathes in the warm ocean scent of him.  
“Go on.”  
“I will show you the chthonic chambers filled with stars and the marsh-lights of _Xoth_. You will light up the void with your song. The starspawn will praise you and each damp thing that shakes through creation will know that you are _mine_.”  
Steve huffs. “I’m a terrible singer, I can’t carry a tune.”  
Bucky grins, his teeth sharp and white. “All the more reason for all of creation to fear your song.”  
“Well, so long as all of creation doesn’t mind that the only song I know the words to is ‘You are my sunshine’, we should be fine.” He noses at Bucky’s hair. “What about you?”  
Bucky tilt his head up and kisses the line of Steve’s jaw. “My most beautiful. You outshine the stars.”  
Steve blushes, red to the tips of his ears. “Pink and blue,” he whispers. “Very.”

They exit the subway and walk down Sitwell Avenue, past the tourist attractions and the traders packing up for the day. They make their way down to the beach, slipping off their shoes and leaving them on the sand, and walk out to see the sunset.  
The sky is awash with yellow and gold, the waves burnished bronze by the light. The moon is the colour of honey, and the stars come out, one by one.  
Bucky takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with salt scented breeze.  
He turns to Steve, and his eyes shine like silver. “Are you ready?”  
Steve looks up at the night sky, the sweep of the Milky Way. “Yeah.”  
Bucky reaches out to him, and Steve walks into his arms, breathing in the scent of him, salt and green tea and seaweed. He grips the hem of Bucky’s shirt and tugs it up over his head, chuckling as his arms get caught in the sleeves. He drops the shirt on the wet sand, lifting his hands over his head so Bucky can strip off his own t-shirt.  
He kisses Bucky, salt-tinged and lazy, letting his palms skim over the firm muscles of his back, reaching up to his shoulders. Bucky crooks his thumbs into the waistband at the back of Steve’s pants, cupping his fingers over the swell of his ass.  
Steve skims the flat of his hands down to the small of Bucky’s back, sliding their tongues together, rough and smooth, soft and languid.  
Bucky finally pushes down, easing Steve’s pants over the curve of his ass and letting them fall, and Steve toes them off, kicking them away without looking, reluctant to break the kiss. He can feel Bucky work open his jeans and shimmy them down, pushing the bundle of cloth away with his foot.  
“Ready?” he breathes into Steve’s mouth, tongue slipping between his teeth.  
Steve closes his mouth around Bucky’s tongue and sucks, tastes saltwater and stardust.  
“Yeah.”  
Bucky pulls him into the tide, past the warm shallows to where the water runs deep and cold. Steve shivers, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s shoulders for warmth, for the sweet touch of him, and holds his breath as Bucky tilts forward, pushing him down to the seabed.

The stone against Steve’s back is cold and damp. The air dense with fog that would chill to the bone. Overhead are the high vaulted arches of a temple long since fallen to ruin.  
But the weight of Bucky on him is warm and heavy, the press of mouths against his lips, his throat, his ass.  
“Bucky…” Steve murmurs, chiding. He gets a sharp bite for that, soothed by the flat of a tongue.  
He reaches down to tangle his fingers in Bucky’s chestnut hair, because the Bucky he knows, the Bucky he lives with, is there between his legs, kissing a line from his throat to his navel. The _other_ form, the one he has seen in dreams and flashes and that night at Coney Island, is there too, occupying the same space and time.  
They are not two separate entities, they are only him. The great spread of darkness draped over his shoulders like a cloak, like wings.  
Bucky pushes Steve’s legs apart and settles between them, curling his hands around Steve’s thighs and bending down to lick a stripe along his thickening cock.  
Steve groans as Bucky swallows him down, his nose brushing against the dark blond thatch of pubic hair and drawing up Steve’s length, bobbing his head lazily.  
Steve bites back a moan, squeezing Bucky’s shoulders as he pulls off, dipping his head to suck on Steve’s balls, drawing each one into his mouth while he rubs his thumb along the underside of Steve’s shaft.  
Bucky ducks his head lower, cupping Steve’s ass in the palms of his hands and spreading his cheeks open. He flicks his rough tongue over the tight ring of muscle, the suckers catching on the furled rim. Again and again he swipes his tongue, fastening his mouth over the loosening hole and humming deep and low, sending vibrations through Steve’s veins.  
Steve gasps as Bucky slips his tongue inside, pushing it deeper and deeper, the ridges and suckers rough against his sensitive skin, lighting up sparks along his spine.  
Sweat prickles across his skin that a dozen tongues lap up. Every time Steve thinks that must be it, that must be all of him, Bucky pushes a little more, licking him open in broad strokes and teasing flicks of the tongue.  
He shivers with the cold, with the rough textured tongue pressing against his prostate and the teeth grazing against his sweat-slick skin. Electricity crackling under his skin.

Bucky withdraws his tongue, and Steve feels painfully open, an empty vessel desperate to be filled. He whines as Bucky crawls up his body, pausing to fasten his mouth over his left nipple and suck, a little too hard, a little too sharply, nibbling at pebbled flesh until Steve tugs at his hair. Bucky murmurs an apology, soothing the tender nub with slow laps of his tongue until Steve tugs again, impatient.  
He can feel the mouths smiling as Bucky moves up Steve’s body, tentacles brushing against his thighs, curling around the head of his cock. Bucky presses teeth to Steve’s throat, pricking at his skin.  
“Will you surrender to me?” Bucky mouths at the sweat-slick skin, pulse beating under his teeth. “Cleave yourself to me, and none other?”  
Steve swallows, the slightest movement of his throat pricking and drawing blood. “Yes.”  
Bucky kisses him, teeth sharp and scratching at his lips, and Steve can taste the faint traces of blood and copper and salt on his tongue before Bucky retreats, sitting up to pull Steve’s thighs up and around his waist.  
Steve presses his shoulders to the cold stone, lifting his hips and feeling the blunt head of a tentacle press against his lax ring of muscle, slick with fluid. There is the briefest resistance as it nudges against him, then a sweet shiver as it slides in.  
He gasps at the sensation, slippery, rough textured skin moving inside him, prehensile and questing. It pushes in and withdraws once, twice, and on the third time it is joined by another, slick and slender.  
Steve pants, reaching out to grasp Bucky’s arms, braced either side of his hips. Bucky’s head is bowed, his brow furrowed in concentration. Moving his hips slowly, achingly slowly. He looks up at Steve’s touch and smiles, breathless, reaching out to grasp hands. Steve laces their fingers together, palm to palm, shuddering as the tentacles inside him twist and scissor, stretching him open.  
A third, blunt headed tentacle presses at his rim, easing its way between the others. It’s almost too much, a pleasure bordering on pain, and Steve lets out a long, low moan. Bucky rubs Steve’s stomach in gentle circles while his mouths shush and soothe and whisper praises, their low, rasping voices echoing through the vaulted chambers.

The three tentacles inside him recede, but don’t pull out completely, hooking just inside the loose ring of muscle and holding him open while the main appendage pushes into him, its slippery tapering point stroking his over-sensitive walls as it slides in.  
The three ease their way back inside, moving in a pulsing rhythm in counterpoint to the tapered appendage pushing in deeper and deeper.  
Steve moans again as Bucky leans down and kisses him. He smells of damp green things and crushed seashells, of thunderstorms. Steve swallows his kisses and soft whispers of devotion and offers up his own in return until Bucky cups a hand to his chin.  
**Look**  
Steve lets his head rest against the stone and looks. Above them the void stretches out beyond comprehension. The deepest shades of navy and indigo and scarlet, overlapping and intertwining like the bodies below.  
There are watchers in the void.  
Bucky presses his cheek to Steve’s shoulder and lets out a low, sweet sigh, breath drawing up goosebumps on Steve’s skin. Steve reaches up and brushes his hands across the vast shimmering mantle, and his mouth forms words, sounds beyond him, though their meaning is not. Bucky murmurs in answer and starts to rock his hips.  
He moves slowly at first, building momentum, and it burns, sharp and sweet. Steve draws up his knees and digs his heels into the base of Bucky’s spine, pressing down hard. It aches, it aches and it burns and he _wants it_. He wraps his arms around Bucky’s shoulders and stares up at the void, challenging, and feels the largest tentacle swell inside him, filling him and pressing against his prostate..  
He comes in hot wet spurts, again and again, and still Bucky keeps moving.  
He’s so full, so oversensitive, and can’t help but clench down on the tentacles pushing deeper inside him, the thinnest ones easing their way in one by one, the whole tangled mass dragging against his prostate with the slightest shift of their bodies.  
He grips a handful of Bucky’s sweat soaked hair and crashes their mouths together, sucking and biting, saturated in pleasure and half euphoric with it.  
Bucky quakes, and the void shakes with him. He fills Steve’s mouth with sounds, low and reverberating and beyond mortal comprehension. Steve swallows them whole, and the stone cracks beneath them, crumbling to sand.

A wave washes over them, reaching up to their shoulders, and Steve jolts awake.  
The sand is cold and damp at his back, Bucky a warm heavy weight on his chest. Steve looks up and sees a blue sky, tinged pink with the sunrise.  
Another wave washes over them, reaching the tips of Steve’s outstretched fingers as he yawns and stretches as best as he can with Bucky using him as a mattress.  
He aches _everywhere_. His shoulders are stiff, and his ass…  
He shifts, sand sticking to his bare skin. At least the cold water is soothing.  
“Hey, Buck. Wake up,” he murmurs skimming a palm across warm, tanned skin.  
Bucky resolutely keeps his eyes closed, but turns his head to one side to answer. “Are you drowning?”  
Steve chuckles, smoothing his thumb over the nape of Bucky’s neck. “Not yet.”  
“I’ll wake up when you’re drowning,” Bucky mumbles into his chest.  
Steve flat out laughs, which jostles Bucky enough to actually move. He rolls off Steve and onto his side, head pillowed on Steve’s shoulder and wincing at the light. He keeps a hand on Steve’s hip, stroking lightly.  
“Did it work?” Steve asks as the waves wash over them.  
“Mmm-hmm,” Bucky yawns. “We are mated before _Dagon_ and _Zoth-Ommog_ , and the dead dreamers beneath _Ponape_ and _R’lyeh._ ”  
Steve trails his fingers through the wet sand. “Remind me what that means.”  
Bucky’s hand moves lower, the touch is gentle, soothing and a little possessive.  
“This realm is mine. They will not interfere.”  
“Mmm?” Steve murmurs. He’s listening, he is. But Bucky’s fingers are… distracting.  
“The Elder Gods aren’t used to being glared at.”  
Steve chuckles. “Well they should mind their own business.”  
A wave washes around them, seafoam catching in Bucky’s hair as it flows like fronds of seaweed.  
“The deed is done,” Bucky kisses Steve’s shoulder. “Thank you.”  
“You’re welcome.” Steve smiles and curls his hand around the nape of Bucky’s neck. “I mean, I prefer a bed to an altar stone, and definitely could live without the audience.” Bucky grins against his shoulder. “But the rest?”  
Steve flushes pink, and Bucky is delighted to see just how far down it goes.  
“Yeah, I could do that again.”  
Steve covers his face with his hand, and his ears are _crimson_. Bucky pulls the hand away and kisses him, deep and sweet and slow.  
“Steve?” he murmurs.  
“Mmmm?” Steve hides his face in Bucky’s hair, breathing in the mingled scent of them both, sunlight on water.  
“I got sand in places I don’t want sand to be in.”  
Steve laughs, deep and joyful, and he feels like his heart can’t hold it all in.  
“Come on,” he climbs to his feet, his legs still a little shaky, and holds out his hands.  
“Let’s go home.”


End file.
